You'll Never Hunt Alone
by Zemphyra
Summary: Set just after Wendigo. Dean and Sam stumble upon a young woman and her father on the same hunt. What is this sudden attraction she has for Dean and does he feel the same way? Only time will tell. OC POV. OC/Dean. Rated T for slight language.
1. The Pope Lick Monster

**You'll Never Hunt Alone**

**CHAPTER ONE**

The car door slammed, jolting Zoe Griffith from her deep slumber. With emerald eyes that still weren't used to focusing, she scanned the area, her fingers closing around the handle to escape from the ever-enveloping small space of the cramped SUV. She strained her head towards the driver's side, noticing a crick had started niggling in her neck and began to work on the cramped muscles with her fingertips.

"Where are we?" she asked, her eyes taking in the driver as well as their forest encompassed surroundings.

"Louisville, Kentucky," the driver replied.

He was a tall man, perhaps 6'1 or even 6'2. His black-greying hair was slicked back and a long scar protruded over one eye. He had a familiar lameness to his gait, and as Zoe watched him limp towards the trunk of the SUV, she saw other familiarities. The proud chin that they both shared, the golden rays that surrounded the irises of their eyes (although his eyes were hazel), even the way they held themselves with the knowledge of exactly what their bodies were capable of were the same. There was no denying that these two were related. They were in fact father and daughter.

"Got a good tip on a hunt down here while you were asleep, thought we could take a look?" his voice held a question, though no real answer was needed.

"So what are we dealing with?" Zoe asked and was rewarded with her father digging a manila folder out of his leather jacket, which he then handed to his daughter.

Zoe quickly opened it and scanned the pages which seemed to be newspaper clippings of several disappearances in the area over the last few months, most of them young teenage couples.

"I think this is what we're dealing with," he said, directing her to the last page with his finger.

"The Pope Lick Monster?" she asked incredulously, reading its title. "Wow, a Catholic's worst nightmare, huh?"

He chuckled, "Cute Zoe, but no. Its name comes from the creek that runs underneath the trestle where it preys upon its victims. Believed to be a satyr: half man, half goat. Four couples in all. Two of them found broken in half from the fall off the trestle. One of them hit by an oncoming train, and the last: just plain missing."

Zoe shook her head, a couple of brown locks falling from their perch behind her ear. "See? Just another reason why love sucks. They should put a warning label on it: Warning: May come with jealous goatman who will toss you to your grisly death."

The joke was lame, but it made her father smile. And she knew it was good to keep him in high spirits. Especially since he had recently fallen in love with the first woman in more than two decades. It just wasn't fair that the woman who had Ryan Griffith's heart happened to want to cut it out so she could serve it on a silver platter to a party of demons.

**Bitch**, Zoe thought. If she ever saw Lynette Beryl she would make sure she didn't slink away so easily a second time.

She watched as her father opened the trunk of the SUV, grabbed a carry bag and begun loading it up with the usual arsenal: a Remington pump-action shotgun, a Winchester double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun, lighter fluid, waterproof matches, two small flashlights, a container of salt, a rope, bolt cutters and some ammo.

While he handed Zoe a large sheathed hunting knife, he began to recite the history of the Pope Licker Monster. "There are three legends of how the monster came to be. The first is that the monster is actually the offspring of a farmer who had sexual relations with his goats."

Zoe took the knife from him, fastened it to her belt and shuddered. "Now there's an image I so did not need..."

Her father ignored her, and passed a Browning 9x19mm handgun and a couple of pre-loaded clips. He then continued. "The second is that the monster was once a farmer who sacrificed his goats to gain power in his satanic faith. The night he died he swore revenge and was resurrected as the goatman of Pope Lick Creek."

He waited for a savvy remark but when none came he continued onto the final legend, sliding a sheathed Bowie hunting knife with a coffin shaped handle into his boot. "And the last and perhaps most likely is that back in the 1800s the monster was captured and became an exhibit in a circus owned by a man by the name of Silus Garner. The show became a hit and the circus toured the country until one night the train derailed and killed all of the passengers except for one..."

"The goatman..." Zoe whispered.

"Yes. Over the years there have been some unexplained deaths in the area. The local cops fenced it off to keep people out, but I guess someone didn't listen to the warnings."

"Pfft," Zoe scoffed. "Do they ever?"

"Idiotic behaviour is one of the top five reasons we get so much business. Well," he started, hitching the bag over his shoulder. "We should get a move on. It'll be dark in a couple of hours, and the Hunters Guide to the Universe didn't bother to include how effective this thing kills at night."

Zoe nodded, shut the trunk behind her and made her way with her father into the sparse forestry, matching him stride for stride. Ryan slid his spare clips into his belt, chambered his handgun and then smiled as his daughter mirrored his movements: he'd taught her well.

"So I'm confused, why the hell would anyone go up to the trestle if they know their deaths are waiting up there?" Zoe wondered out loud, keeping up with her father's lean movements.

"There is a rumour," Ryan mused. "It's believed that the Goatman uses some sort of hypnosis to call out to people and lure them to him."

Zoe nodded and fell silent, letting only her thoughts trail. She remained on high alert, halting at every alien sound until she or her father could pinpoint its source. They made good time, and Zoe was grateful that she had decided to wear her loose fitting jeans, her light blue fleece-lined jacket and her sensible black boots. There was nothing worse than being on a hunt and not wearing suitable attire and it certainly wasn't an easy trek.

They got to Pope Lick Creek with forty-five minutes of light to spare. Zoe and Ryan took in their surroundings. Pope Lick Creek was framed by forest on all sides. Fences sprouting warning signs that warded off trespasses were posted on every entrance. The creek here had a muddy tinge to it. It didn't look like a creek so much as an expansive puddle. The trestle that rose out from it was rusted and streaked from the weather.

Shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, Zoe followed its frame to the top. "Wow, that's pretty high," she gushed, feeling her impeding fear of heights engulf her.

"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "A hundred feet up at least. Not a place you want to fall from, let's put it that way. So don't even think about climbing up there."

Zoe wouldn't have dreamed about it. She liked the ground. The ground was safe. Anything that was higher than 10 feet made her dizzy.

Ryan opened the carry bag, produced the pair of bolt cutters and went to work on the padlock that held the gate securely shut. It clanged to the ground, and they pushed their way through the gate, their handguns both drawn up at the ready as they scouted the area for any impending danger. When they were both satisfied that there was none, they dropped their weapons to their side, but didn't bother to holster them. There might not be any immediate threats, but that didn't mean that there wasn't something lurking somewhere out of sight, watching patiently for its chance to strike.

"So what's the plan?" Zoe asked, eyeing her father's every movement.

"Well, I'm going to climb up there," he said and gestured to the trestle, causing a knot form in Zoe's stomach.

"But you said-" Zoe started to protest before being cut off.

"That you were to stay on the ground. I know what I said."

Zoe bit her lip in frustration, Ryan misinterpreting it as fear for her own safety.

"You'll be fine down here," he assured her, moving quickly to an eastern path before turning back towards his daughter. "Don't worry; we're going to get this son of a bitch. You just stay here out of trouble."

Ryan didn't look back as he limped out of sight and towards an embankment that would eventually lead him to the railway of the trestle so he didn't notice the daggers his daughter had been shooting at him in retaliation to his last statement. Trouble indeed.

Why leave me behind now? Zoe wondered, broodingly. Hadn't she been in on all the action that occurred with the banshee? Hadn't she proven her worth slaying the vampire harem? To be left behind on such a routine hunt was insulting. Still, she pried her eyes away from the path where her father had disappeared and began to pace the quiet creek line, keeping her instincts on ready alert.

Time passed and Zoe stopped pacing and sat down on one of the large rocks that littered the area, tapping the safety-engaged gun on her thigh impatiently. It was starting to get dark. Already the sun was beginning to dip into position to say goodbye. Zoe checked her watch to find that 30 minutes had passed. That left, at most, 15 minutes of good light.

"Come on, Dad, where the hell are you?" she muttered and almost jumped out of her skin when she was rewarded with a vibration at her hip and the song "Born to Be Wild" began to play – which was one of her father's favourites.

Grasping its base from her hip pocket, she flipped the cellular phone open and put it to her ear, already knowing whose voice she'd hear on the other line.

"Dad?! Oh my god, you had me so worried-" she began.

"Zoe??" her father's voice cut in. It sounded much further away than just a few hundred feet. His voice was barely audible, and the line crackled terribly.

"Dad? I can barely hear you," she yelled into the receiver.

"—need you – came at – fought – lots of – cornered – bleeding – on top – come now!"

"But you told me to stay put!" Zoe was breathing hard, anxiety laden with the words she wasn't hearing.

"—don't matter – here – now!"

With that, the call dropped out and Zoe held the phone at arm's length as it had turned into the Pope Lick Monster in front of her very eyes.

Was she really supposed to leave her post and go traipsing around the very dangerous countryside to find her father? But wasn't this exactly what she wanted?

Zoe stuck her phone back in her pocket and with one last fleeting look at the disappearing sunset, she clicked the safety off her gun and began to jog up the path that would lead her to her father. It felt like it took forever to get to the overpass, though in reality it probably only took a few minutes.

Holding her gun at the ready, her eyes never lingered on a spot for too long, and she began the perilous journey across the trestle, the adrenaline keeping her fear of heights at bay.

Her footsteps clanged loudly as she progressed across the trestle and it wasn't long before she found herself dead centre in the middle of the bridge. There wasn't much light left but it was enough to see that no one else was on the trestle: she was alone up here. Alone, over a hundred feet in the air. The fear started to kick in then, and she took several shallow breaths of air into her lungs, her gun flailing wildly from side to side as she spun herself around in a circle.

"Shit!" she cursed almost silently. This was a very bad idea.

She was about to start backing up to retrace her steps when suddenly the phone at her hip began to vibrate once more and a song Zoe had never heard began to play. A slow country guitar and then an old man crooning;

"Hear that lonesome whippoorwill,  
He sounds too blue to fly,  
The midnight train is whining low,  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

With shaking hands, she pulled the phone from her pocket and looked at the caller ID. The LCD lights were flickering with an endless stream of numbers. And still the song kept on playing with Zoe unable to do little else but stare at the alien thing that had once been her favourite way of communicating.

"I've never seen a night so long  
When time goes crawling by.  
The moon just went behind a cloud  
To hide its face and cry."

A guitar solo played and Zoe felt her piece shake with the tremors that ran through her body. She realised how stupid it had been to come up here. She was utterly alone, and she felt completely vulnerable to whatever it was that was up here, the protection of her gun doing little to quell her fear.

"Did you ever see a robin weep  
When leaves begin to die?  
That means he's lost the will to live  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

She could sense that the song was winding down. Surely she only had a matter of seconds before the monster would jump out at her, pushing her to the dusty earth beneath the trestle.

**Well I won't go down without a fight**, she thought, squaring off her shoulders as best she could.

"The silence of a falling star  
Lights up a purple sky.  
And as I wonder where you are  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

As she listened to the final strings being plucked, she held her phone in one hand, the gun secured in the other, slowly swivelling it from one direction to the next. Nothing stirred. The wind blew softly over her skin, and after a time the sun finally dipped below the horizon, and the moon smiled eerily at her from up above. Still, she didn't dare make a move.

What is it waiting for? she wondered.

As she continued to scan the area, something to the west caught her attention. A beacon of light was slicing through the night at quite a speed, though it was difficult to tell exactly what it was. As Zoe watched, it began to make a beeline for the trestle's tracks and she realised it was in fact an oncoming train and that at any moment it could come barrelling along the very track that she stood on. Zoe swore, loudly, and turned on her heel ready to sprint back to safety.

Only, she wasn't alone anymore. There standing before her, barring her way, was none other than the one both her and her father were hunting: the Pope Lick Monster himself. Her heart jumped into her throat as she took in the fabled creature's appearance and she realised the legends just didn't do him justice.

The Pope Lick Monster stood erect on two powerful goat-shaped legs, its feet ending in hooves. Albino fur covered its body and its upper body consisted of a grotesque torso of an adult male. Its skin was translucent and it showed ghastly black except in the places where flesh was pulled tightly over bone. The face slightly resembled something human, though its features were too out of place: its eyes too far apart, its nostrils too aquiline, and its jaw jutted out much too far. From atop a mane of greasy, matted, long, white hair were two sharp, short horns.

It looked at Zoe with black soulless eyes, and grunted, causing her to whip her gun around to point at the fabled creature.

"Don't move!" Zoe shouted, and was surprised to find her voice came out much braver sounding than she felt.

Though her performance didn't seem to matter in the slightest. In one swift movement the creature lunged for her and Zoe fired her gun: a wild shot that sped off into the darkness instead of into the flesh of the monster. Zoe yelped as the weight of the monster came down upon her and she felt a pain in her right ankle as she buckled underneath it. Her back hit the rails and the two landed in an unceremonious heap, Zoe's gun skittering away from her before toppling off the edge of the trestle and into the unknown below.

**That's where I'm gonna end up if I don't do something**, Zoe thought as the goatman hissed and screeched, its powerful hands seizing Zoe's throat.

It shook her as easily as if she were a ragdoll, her head jerking back and forth so violently that Zoe was terrified that any moment now it would rip from its socket.

Without warning and as suddenly as it had come, the shaking stopped and Zoe had only a moment to wonder why. Then she heard it. In her hand, something vibrated and a familiar croon pierced the night air.

""Hear that lonesome whippoorwill,  
He sounds too blue to fly,  
The midnight train is whining low,  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

The phone! Zoe realised. She still had it clamped in her other hand. The monster's eyes were confused as it stared at the foreign object, and it listened intently to the lyrics that Zoe had heard just a short time ago. Soon though, its confusion turned to anger and it bellowed ferociously before slamming Zoe's head down into the rails.

At first, Zoe thought it was trying to crush her head against the rail underneath, but then she noticed a light was shining on the two trespassers of the now vibrating trestle. The train had begun its descent onto the bridge, and in moments it would be upon them. A scream was thrown to the winds as Zoe beat at every available part of the goatman she could reach, having just about as much impact as a flyswat would have had.

This is it, Zoe thought. This is how it ends.

Her eyes squeezed tightly closed as a silent tear trekked its way down her cheek. Would her life flash before her eyes? Would someone meet her at the pearly gates? She didn't know but in seconds all of her questions would be answered.

"Dad... I'm so sorry..." she whispered, the last things to ever leave her lips. Or so she thought.

The gunshot that sounded a heartbeat later wasn't the thing that made her breathe again, the rush of air that greeted her screaming lungs on the other hand was what surprised her. The monster had finally let her go!

Her eyes snapped open and she saw that the monster was now standing four feet away. Its arms were windmilling wildly and she watched the horror on the monster's face as it toppled comically off the trestle, an animalistic scream following it in its wake.

Zoe had no time to wonder what the hell had just happened as strong arms folded around her and pulled her dazed and bruised body towards the safety of the now unbarricaded embankment. When asked later, Zoe wouldn't remember how she was able to run alongside her saviour. But somehow, with the adrenaline that comes with a life and death situation pumping through her veins, she found the strength to keep the pace and eventually her hero pulled her off of the railway and the two fell into a tangle of arms and legs and torsos a moment before four thousand tonnes of steel and metal whizzed by harmlessly.

Zoe cradled her face to her saviour's rising and falling chest, finding comfort in the simple movement. His arms held her tightly against him, making her wish she could stay forever in this protective embrace, but a voice called out, "Dean!" and the body underneath her reverberated with the reply, "Over here!" making it impossible to lose herself in the moment.

Zoe stood up slowly, her head aching both from the lack of oxygen and the blows she had received to it. Her hand slid up to cup the large bruise that was forming on the base of her skull.

"You okay?" came the deep voice of her saviour, 'Dean'.

He was an attractive young man, Zoe guessed he was probably in his mid-twenties. He looked to be quite tall, around 6'2. He had short-cropped brown hair and green eyes that were full of playful concern for the girl he had just saved.

Zoe nodded, the movement causing her head to swim as her legs buckled underneath her. Strong, familiar arms steadied her and a voice tickled her earlobe. "Whoa, that was quite a knock you took back there. Better take it easy, princess".

"Dean!" Two figures crashed through the bushes, one Zoe immediately recognised as her father. The other one, another attractive young man, had chocolate-coloured brown hair, softly tousled from the wind. His frame was taller and leaner than Dean's stockier build and his hazel eyes, that looked like they could appear gentle and full of depth, shone with fierce protectiveness.

"What were you thinking, Dean?! I almost shot you!" The one Zoe didn't know yet shouted.

"I was thinking you were a better shot than that Sammy," Dean flashed his pearly whites at 'Sammy'. "And I was right."

'Sammy' rolled his eyes. Obviously he was used to this kind of thing.

Still, he shot Zoe an apologetic look. "Excuse my brother. He often thinks he's invincible." His voice was as soft as his gentle eyes had now become. "My name's Sam and this is my brother, Dean."

* * *

**A/N:** Well that's it. I hoped you liked it. I'd love to hear your feedback, so please take the time out to rate and review. Thanks so much, it means a lot And also as I mentioned in the summary this is set before Wendigo, I plan to actually incorporate the Supernatural episodes into the story. It should be really awesome. I hope you're as excited to read it as I am to write it!


	2. Saviour

**A/N:** Thank you so much to those who reviewed! I'm so glad to know that you like the story To those of you who haven't it'll only take a few moments and it helps writers know that people are into what they're doing, so they keep on doing it )

**Disclaimer**: I don't own any part of Supernatural. Not the characters, not the Impala, nothing. All I own are an excess of a thousand daydreams of Dean

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO**

"They're John Winchester's boys," Ryan said, speaking for the first time and making Zoe remember that he was there and that Dean still had her in his embrace.

Her cheeks warmed, and she straightened herself up to stand on her own two feet unaided.

She'd heard a lot about the Winchester boys but this was the first time she'd actually met them. They sure didn't look anything like what she had imagined. Male hunters always had that ragged look. These guys certainly didn't look ragged. On the contrary, Zoe thought they actually looked pretty damn cute.

Zoe turned to her father, willing the heat from her cheeks. "What happened to the monster?" she asked to distract herself, her strained and sore throat making her voice softer than usual.

"Well, after falling off the trestle we saw him running off to the west." Ryan sighed, bending down to pick up something off the earthen floor. "I doubt we've seen the last of him and he did sound pretty pissed." He held out something purple to his daughter and as she looked into his hand she saw he had found her phone. It must've fallen from her hand when she hit the ground with Dean.

The sight of her phone had triggered a memory in her cloudy mind. "Oh!" she cried as the memory became clear. "It rang... just before the monster showed up. Then this song came on that I've never heard. 'I'm so Lonely I Could Cry'... I think that's what it's called."

"That's strange," Sam said. "Dean's phone did the same thing. The closer to the trestle we got, the louder the song got. We thought it was from the Pope Lick Monster."

Zoe nodded. "Yeah, me too". I thought I was a goner, she added silently.

"Hank Williams' 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry'... Kind of fitting really," Ryan mused, rubbing his dark stubble thoughtfully. "The midnight train, several references to death..."

"Yeah, and then there's the whippoorwill," Sam agreed.

"Whipper-what?" asked Dean, tilting his head to the side curiously.

"The whippoorwill," Sam corrected. "It's a type of nightjar..."

"A bird," Ryan added after seeing the confused look on Dean's face.

"Right," Sam nodded and continued his explanation. "Legend says that the whippoorwill can sense a soul departing and capture it as it flees."

A silence fell over the group as they all thought about the significance of the song. Finally Zoe broke it.

"None of this makes any sense," she said, her frustration evident. "Why would it lead me to my death, yet at the same time lead you to where I was so you could save me?"

"Whoever said it had to make sense, sweetheart?" Dean laughed, earning a raised eyebrow from both Sam and Ryan. "Since when did any of this make sense? It's a monster, it's not meant to make sense. If it's a monster, we kill it. That's it. The end. Right, Sam?"

Dean turned to Sam expectantly while Zoe looked at him with piqued curiosity. She noticed he didn't look at all comfortable with his current predicament.

"Well, it is true that we're here to hunt," Sam said and Zoe was rewarded with a smug smirk from Dean. "But," Sam began again, which caused the smirk to slip right off Dean's lips, "I'm sure the monster probably thought we wouldn't be able to save you. I mean we really had to haul ass back there."

Dean scowled at his brother, only to have Sam smile innocently back at him. Dean shook his head despairingly. "Pussy," he snorted.

As Dean turned his attention to her father, Zoe shot an appreciative smile to Sam and mouthed, "thank you". Sam nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders in a "no problem" gesture.

"There's no point in staying out here any longer," Ryan said, pulling her focus back to the task at hand. "The sun's gone, and the moon's not the best source ‑­of light right now. I highly doubt he's going to want to come at us again. Our best bet is to do a little digging around and come back tomorrow."

Dean looked surprised. "You mean you wanna team up?"

"Yes, I think it would be a good idea," Ryan nodded, then after seeing a look on the boys' faces he couldn't identify he added, "Of course, if you'd rather not or if you have some other place to be..."

"No!" Sam assured him adamantly. "We'd welcome the company, right, Dean?"

"Right," Dean agreed.

Ryan smiled, and tilted his head thoughtfully. "I was actually wondering why you're hunting alone. Where is John at these days?"

They both looked taken aback. Sam was the first to recover. "He's-"

"-hunting," Dean said, cutting his brother off as he recovered as well.

They shared a look, and in that moment some sort of silent message was exchanged between the two siblings. Zoe watched them with suspicion before gazing over at her father. An unrecognisable expression was present in her father's features, but in an instant the look was gone and a fixed smile was in its place.

"Hunting?" Ryan echoed. "What exactly is he hunting?"

"Ghosts, vampires, the usual," Dean shrugged nonchalantly.

Ryan nodded. He knew there was something that the Winchester boys weren't telling him, but he decided not to press the subject.

Dean took advantage of the silence. "Let's head back and find a couple of rooms for the night."

Nods of agreement were shared all around. Zoe moved to the bag her father had lugged up to the trestle and grabbed the two flashlights they'd brought. Without a word she handed the first to her father, and then held one out to Dean. He nodded his thanks and as he went to take it off her, his hand brushed lightly against hers. A jolt where their skin met caused Zoe to look up in surprise only to find ‑­Dean's eyes were already on hers. His gaze was piercing in the dark and the intensity of his eyes made her look away, afraid that he might see things no one was supposed to see.

Zoe busied herself with getting ready. She shoved her phone in her back pocket and found that she wasn't as fond of the piece of technology as she usually was. She could have sworn she could still feel Dean's stare on her but when she turned to look she found his concentration was now on his gun. She was surprised to find that she actually felt a little disappointed that he was busying himself with something else. Zoe looked down at her own unarmed side, she really felt exposed without her gun. She made a silent promise to herself that she would look for it tomorrow and although that didn't cause her gun to materialise in her hand, she felt a little safer in having a set plan in front of her.

Ryan secured his bag around his midsection, took his gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other. "I'll go in front," he said then motioned to the other three. "Sam, you and Zoe in the middle. Dean you bring up the rear."

One by one, they all fell into their assigned positions.

"I don't mind being behind," Dean said suggestively, leaning so close that his warm breath swept over Zoe's neck.

Zoe ducked her head in embarrassment. Her cheeks flushed and she checked to see if the others had heard Dean's comment and found to her relief that they were completely oblivious to what was going on behind him.

* * *

The trek back to where they'd left the car was harder in the dark. Zoe stumbled a few times only to have Dean assist her. It made her feel self conscious having him follow behind her. She just knew he was checking her out. She knew the type.

Zoe became certain her thoughts had been dead accurate when at one point she slipped on a larger rock and felt her body plunge forwards. Dean's arms shot around her to steady her. Innocent enough, except his hands had rested on her breasts in his bid to stop her from falling.

Horrified, Zoe slapped his hands away and elbowed him back a few feet. With one hand covering her modesty, she gave him an icy glare. "Pervert!" she cried indignantly, which made both Sam and her father stop and look back at her.

Dean flashed a winning grin and rubbed his stomach with mock hurt. "That's the thanks I get for not letting you crack your skull open?"

Zoe shook her head but remained silent, turning instead to catch up with the others who had lost interest in the fiasco and were a few feet ahead of them. Dean took her cue and followed quickly behind.

* * *

The rest of the hike passed by without event. It felt like the trip was even quicker in return form because in what felt like no time at all they were standing beside their cars, wondering which hotel was the closest and most of all which one they would be likely to draw the least attention from. Zoe leant against the hood of her dad's SUV and blocked out the day's events.

She watched as Sam went over to their car, a black heavy-set machine that looked to be way before Zoe's time. Not that Zoe knew much about the cars of today. She really wasn't much of a car enthusiast. Really so long as it went forwards and backwards and got her from point A to point B, that was all she wanted in a vehicle. She supposed it was nice in its own respect. Better looking than her father's banged up SUV that was for sure.

"She's a looker, huh?" She hadn't noticed that Dean had slid in beside her to lean his own back against the SUV's passenger side door.

"Hm?" Zoe murmured not really understanding.

He jerked a thumb towards the car. "Couldn't help noticing you were checking out the Impala."

A cheeky smile played on Zoe's lips. "Who said I was looking at the car?" she asked, inclining her head towards Sam who currently had his backside peeking out from the open car door.

Dean smirked playfully. "And I'm the pervert?"

Zoe laughed and was about to protest that her hands hadn't gone anywhere near Sam's butt - or any other piece of his anatomy - so really how could she be in the same league as Dean, when she was interrupted by none other than the subject of their conversation.

"I checked the map and came up with a few hotels back in Louisville," Sam said, rejoining their group.

Ryan came around from the back of the SUV where he'd been reloading their gear. "So what's the verdict?" he asked.

"The Red Roof Inn," Sam replied.

With a nod, Ryan started for the driver's side of his SUV. "Okay then," he said, opening his door with a creaking sound. "We'll follow you."

Sam simply nodded, but Dean couldn't resist. "You think you can keep up in this hunk of scrap metal?" he asked, indicating the fender that was held on with a piece of loose wire.

Zoe's father smiled good-naturedly. "You'd be surprised what this baby can do," he said, and turned the key over. The SUV gave a few splutters before it settled into a gentle kitten's purr.

Figuring this was her cue, Zoe looked to where Dean still leant against the door. She motioned for him to get out of the way, and when he didn't move at first, she thought he was going to refuse. But just as she'd thought she might actually have to physically remove him from the car door, he looked her up and down. He must have liked whatever he saw there because he gave a low whistle, pushed himself off the door and made his way over to his car with a humorous smile playing over his lips as if he were privy to some private joke.

Zoe watched him go for a moment, before opening the passenger side door and hopping in.

Her father looked at her scrutinisingly. "What was that about?" he asked.

Zoe shrugged her shoulders. Clearly, she didn't know either.

The two of them sat there and watched and waited patiently until the Impala roared to life. The difference in the two vehicles was clear from the first rev. If the SUV was like a kitten, the Impala sounded like a lion. It streaked out of its parking spot, and immediately Zoe saw why Dean thought the SUV wouldn't be able to keep up. The driver was definitely a demon behind the wheel, and Zoe would have bet that the demon's name was Dean.

Her dad shot the SUV onto the highway and matched Dean's speed, breaking several laws in the process. Keeping up with the Impala wasn't all hard work. Luckily the SUV looked far worse than it drove, and Zoe's father had a lot of experience to help him along the way. He didn't talk at all during the drive, and Zoe surmised he had a lot on his mind. Besides she was too busy worrying about her own wellbeing.

Zoe didn't enjoy the drive at all. She strapped herself in with the seatbelt and clung to the overhead safety handle for dear life. It was a terrifying ride and she was relieved when the car finally slowed to a stop. Another few moments and she might've ripped the handle right off.

Zoe opened the door and unwound herself from the car. Several car doors slammed as the group of four made their way to the front desk to check in.

The streetlights illuminated the hotel. There were two two-storey buildings comprised mainly of white stucco. "Red Roof Inn" was painted in huge letters on one of the walls that faced the street and the roof - like the name suggested - was indeed red. There was a small garden in front of a granite wall, and although it wasn't a five-star hotel, it looked quite comfortable.

Dean led the way to reception, the other three trailing closely behind. The man behind the reception desk looked up expectantly. "Hey there," Dean greeted, and then noticing Zoe's father had begun to pull out his wallet, he held up his hand. "My treat." He turned back to the clerk and rattled off what he needed which was two rooms with two double beds in each, laundry service and directions to the nearest diner. Zoe was surprised at his generosity; however that image was quickly shattered when she saw that the name on the credit card was "Gordy Cuthbertson".

Zoe shook her head. _Should've known_, she thought.

"Wow, thanks **Gordy**," Zoe said facetiously.

Dean grinned back at her. "Hey, **Gordy's** only too happy to help."

Sam looked bored. To him it was just a regular end to the day's work. Zoe noticed her dad had a grim, faraway expression on his face like he was doing some really deep and dark thinking. She tucked it into the back of her mind and made a reference to ask him about it later.

With papers signed and keys in hand Gordy/Dean, signalled the others to follow him. "We're upstairs everyone," he called over his shoulder.

Carrying a bag in each hand, Zoe followed Dean around the front of the building and up the stairs, taking one stair for every two of the guys'. They searched for their rooms 7A and 7B and when they were able to find them, Dean tossed Ryan the keys which he caught easily despite looking extremely distracted. Unlocking the door, Ryan immediately strode into the hotel room without uttering as much as a "thanks". Dean didn't seem to mind though and instead turned to Zoe in mid-twist of the doorknob that led to their room.

"You know, sweetheart, if it gets too cold for you in there, there's always plenty of room in my bed," he tried to offer a seductive smile, but Sam had already seized his hand, turned the knob and was shoving his brother into the room. "Alright, Sam, jeez. Alright, I'm going!"

Sam poked his head out of the room, just before it disappeared. "I guess we'll see you guys tomorrow, then."

Zoe nodded. "Tomorrow," she promised. "Goodnight, Sam."

"Night, Zoe," he said before closing the door.

Zoe sighed, walked into her the room she was sharing with her father and dropped her bags to the floor.

The room almost had a cosy feeling, though the excess of furniture made it seem smaller than it actually was. The walls were painted eggshell white, the floors carpeted in a faded navy blue. A television that was currently turned off was perched precariously on top of a set of cream coloured drawers. A comfortable looking fuchsia chair seemed to be the main focus of the room, as well as the two double beds in the centre. It wasn't much, but it had all the basic amenities they needed.

"Ugh," Zoe muttered, catching her reflection in the hanging square-shaped mirror across the room. Her long, wavy hair was in disarray, her shirt torn in several places and a large purple bruise was forming over her left temple. How Dean could ever find that attractive was beyond her. "I look about as good as I feel. Definitely going to need some shower therapy."

Though she was talking to no one in particular, she was surprised her father had remained silent. "You sure seem rather quiet tonight," she called to him, turning her head only to find that he was splayed out on his bed, sound asleep with one hand covering his eyes.

_Man, he must be really tired_, Zoe thought. _He didn't even bother to get under the covers, let alone get dressed._

Zoe walked over to his sleeping form and seized one foot and then the other, removing his boots and socks as she went. Then with a little bit of coaxing - and a whole lot of prodding - she was able to get him underneath the blankets. The whole process had stirred a few early memories of different times when she'd had to act the parent. Here she was doing it again, but at least now he took her along on hunts and she wasn't left waiting patiently for him to come home like a loyal dog would. Waiting and wondering whether she'd ever see him come through the same door he'd left through. Now at least whatever fate had in store for them, they'd face it together.

Zoe mentally shook herself, gathered up some things for a shower and went into the private bathroom. She quietly closed the door, shuddered at the burnt orange coloured walls and tossed her clothes onto a side table. She played around with the shower dials for a couple of minutes until she found the right temperature. Stripping herself of the day's woes, she stepped under the faucet and was pleasantly surprised by just how good the hot water felt on her achy skin.

Little by little the torrents of water washed her thoughts away from her father, away from her childhood memories and even away from the monster of Pope Lick Creek. But for some reason she just couldn't shift her thoughts away from the mischievous Winchester brother who lay probably not even a mere ten feet away in the next room. She'd definitely have to do something to quash those feelings in the morning.


	3. No Mere Acquaintance

**A/N**: Once again thank you so much for the reviews, they're really helping me so I stay focused and keep writing Well here's Chapter Three, hope you enjoy.

**Disclaimer: **I own absolutely nothing of the Supernatural series. I'm totally opened to that idea though if Eric Kripke is by some miracle reading this.

* * *

**CHAPTER THREE**

The first thing Zoe noticed the following morning when she opened her eyes was that her dad's bed was neatly made up and he was nowhere to be seen. With a sleepy scan of the room she saw she was alone. She listened closely for any sounds that might mean he was somewhere close by but nothing gave any such indication.

Zoe groaned and buried her head under the pillow. She really didn't want to leave the comfort of her bed just to go look for him. She was warm here and she could tell by the barest of light coming in from under the shades that it was still quite early.

Sighing in annoyance, she counted to three and willed herself out from under the pillow and onto her feet, slapping two mismatched socks on them as she went: the first, hot pink with a dozen sheep adorning the side, the other, black and white zigzags with words like "Babe" and "Cool" written elegantly in glitter. She wrapped a purple fleece robe around her red Tweety Bird pyjamas, and tied it securely at her waist. It wasn't much of a look but it was all she was able to find since meeting a trickster back in L.A. Zoe was still uncertain as to why the trickster had toyed with her so much as she'd never really had that many clothes in the first place.

"I really need to go shopping," she muttered after she searched through her bag to find a pair of gloves only to come up with a piece of their shredded remains which really added insult to injury. If she ever had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting another trickster she'd give him a good swift kick in the butt for his trouble.

She threw away the remains of her gloves to the room's far corner and rubbed her freezing hands together.

_Damn it's cold_, she thought, crossing to the door and giving it a tug.

She grimaced as the door opened easily in her hand. Her father always had a habit of leaving doors unlocked and she found herself forever nagging him to be more vigilant. After all, they really couldn't afford not to lock the doors in their business. Still she remembered there were other ways of keeping the nasties at bay. She looked down at her feet and sure enough a thin line of salt framed the door. Well at least that was something.

Zoe stepped over the threshold, careful not to disturb the salt barrier and squinted as the early morning sun bathed her body in its glorious rays. Today was going to be beautiful once the cold snap from last night dispersed.

Zoe closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, only just realising how stuffy the hotel room had been when the fresh, unbridled air filled her lungs. The sweet smell of mock oranges surrounded her and she felt herself lull into an easy sense of security. She could have stayed there all day like that, except something had broken her concentration. A noise like someone clearing their throat.

Zoe's eyes snapped open and she looked around to find Dean standing there: fully dressed in dark blue jeans, and an open button-down navy blue shirt over a comfortable black tee. It wasn't anything glamorous, but he definitely looked good in it.

Dean scuffed the toe of his boot against the ground as though testing the waters.

Zoe's eyebrow shot up. "What?" she queried, none too friendly.

A familiar smirk broke out on Dean's face. "Well, good morning to you too, princess. Not a morning person I take it?"

Zoe looked up thoughtfully. Was she a morning person? She couldn't really remember.

"I'm usually asleep at this time," she said, stiffling a yawn with the back of her hand before standing on tip-toes to stretch, her free arm flexing upwards towards the sky of its own accord. Her pyjama top rode up with the movement, and she felt a chilly breeze on her midriff.

"Nice PJs," Dean murmured appreciatively, although Zoe was certain it wasn't her pyjamas he was admiring as she noticed his eyes trailing over the newly exposed flesh.

Zoe pulled her shirt down forcefully, causing Dean's gaze to rise to her own. Her cheeks burned in embarrassment.

"I lost a lot of luggage on one of our hunts," she felt she had to explain. Dean didn't say anything. He just kept watching her with that intense stare. "Where's Sam?" she asked, glad to be able to change the subject. Anything so he would stop looking at her like that.

Dean shot a look at his hotel room door. "Recon. Gotta know what we're up against," he said, before turning back to her. "Your dad?"

Zoe shrugged, trying to look casual. "Were you going somewhere?" she enquired, opting for another subject change once more.

If Dean noticed he didn't let on. "Yeah, breakfast run. You're welcome to join me."

"I'm not really dressed for the occasion," she said, indicating her attire with a offhand wave.

"So go change then," Dean pointed to the watch at his wrist and mimicked ticking. "You've got five minutes and counting. Yell out if you need any help. I'd be only too happy to assist."

Zoe didn't know if it was possible, but she could have sworn she blushed harder at his words. "I think I-I'll manage just fine on my own," she stammered, exiting through her hotel room door and closing it behind her. She pressed her back to the door for a brief moment, took a deep breath and hurried off to get ready.

* * *

Zoe emerged from the room three and a half minutes later, wearing dark grey jeans, a purple Felix the Cat tee, a denim jacket and black boots, and running a brush through her hair.

Dean shot her a surprised look. "You're early."

"Yeah? So?" Zoe tossed the brush back into the hotel, locked the door behind her, and shoved the key into one of her pockets. She supposed she could've left it open for her father, but she figured she wouldn't be that long and it besides it would serve him right if he had to wait.

"Well," Dean started and looked closely at Zoe. "Most girls would have made me wait while they made themselves up."

Zoe stood at the beginning of the stairs and looked at Dean expectantly. "I'm not most girls," she said, stating the obvious.

After all most girls didn't go around hunting demons, monsters and god knows what else.

Noticing that Dean hadn't made a move, she crossed her arms and offered him a challenging look. "If it bothers you so much that you're too embarrassed to be seen with me-"

Dean cut her off with a raised hand. "Nah!" he insisted. "Low maintenance chicks rule!" He severed the distance that separated them in a few steps. "Besides," he said and he was so close that when Zoe looked up into his eyes she could see the gold flecks in their green depths. "You don't need making up."

The intensity shared between the two was so immense that Zoe had to look down. Her heartbeat thudded in her chest, a deafening sound that made it impossible to focus on anything else. She was certain that Dean would hear it. How could he not?

They stayed that way for what seemed like an eternity, before Zoe broke the silence. "We should probably get that breakfast."

As she turned toward the stairs and made the slow descent down, she felt unstable on her feet. Her stomach felt like it was doing an Olympic gymnastics floor event and her heart was hammering so hard that she was afraid at any moment it would burst from its cage. What was this feeling? She'd never felt anything like this before. It was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. She felt scared and exhilarated, confused and clearheaded, drained and vigorous. How could one man make her feel such a vast and contradictory array of emotions all at once?

She took the stairs slowly, one at a time. Dean stayed behind her and the only time he touched her was to steer her towards the Impala, which Zoe noticed with bitter annoyance was alone. The SUV was gone, her father along with it. She'd definitely be having a serious talk with him when he got back from whatever the hell he was doing.

Dean helped her into the Impala and then got in the driver's side. The car started with ease and as he manoeuvred it out of its parking space and into the empty road they flew into a flurry of conversation. They talked about their most recent hunts: a cannibalistic demon in Baltimore for Zoe and her father and a crazed wendigo in Colorado for Sam and Dean. Zoe told Dean how she had met his father for the first time when she was seven-years-old.

* * *

Zoe and her father had been coming back from a weekend in the country with their dogs, a couple of mutts by the names of Sally and Dragoon. It had been late at night when they'd driven along a deserted back road, when suddenly out of nowhere the accelerator suddenly shot to the floor like an invisible force had wedged it there. The steering wheel reefed out of her father's hands and turned rapidly until it was on full lock. A young Zoe watched on in horror as her father tried to pry the steering wheel back but to no avail. She couldn't see right over the dashboard at that age but she could see how the trees thinned out and then disappeared altogether. How the only thing left to see through the windows were silhouetted mountains that littered the far distance. She heard her father cry an almost silent, "Oh God..." and then the car was tilting forwards.

Everything slowed down. It was like someone had hit the slow motion button. The first time the car rolled Zoe, who was in shock by this time, wondered what on earth she was doing upside down. But as the scene resumed its normal speed and the pieces formed a picture in her mind of what she had just witnessed, Zoe screamed: a terrified wail that had no end. The car rolled faster and faster, over again and again. Glass shattered and still Zoe screamed. Until at last the car slammed to a stop and the impact knocked her out.

When Zoe finally came to a pungent smell overcame her nostrils. She'd smelt that somewhere before. She searched her memory and was rewarded with a scene that had happened earlier that day. A merry-filled Zoe hanging out the window of her father's car, singing "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy!" along with the radio while she watched her dad clicking off the fuel pump. He gave his daughter a warm smile and although she knew in the original memory she had smiled back at him, her focus seemed to now be on the couple of drops of liquid that dribbled off the pump. Gas! She could smell gas!

Zoe's eyes flew open. She was upside down, held in place only by her seatbelt, her fingertips lapping gently against the water that now lined the car's roof. She could hear the frantic barks of Sally and Dragoon, and felt glad they at least had escaped unharmed. Zoe turned her head painfully to look at her father. His face was turned away from her and he didn't move. Zoe was scared he might be dead, but she didn't have long to think about it because in the next minute a spark caught light and the whole bottom of the car became engulfed in flame.

"Daddy?" she called croakily. "Daddy, you've gotta wake up!" He didn't stir and Zoe felt the fear surround her. She tried to disengage her seatbelt but nothing happened. "Help!!" she screamed as loudly as she could. "Somebody please help!!"

Tears stained her cheeks, and she could already see the flames licking over the bonnet of the car. She knew what would come next. She'd seen enough movies to know how painful it would be to burn to death.

Just as she had given up all hope, the most glorious sight appeared at her broken window: a man's face. Unkempt dark hair, soft brown eyes, and a three day beard growth that made him look ragged and probably older than he really was. Zoe trusted him immediately to get them out.

"You okay, kiddo?" he asked in a calming voice, reaching across with a hunting knife in one hand. "I'm just going to cut you down."

Zoe nodded feverishly, and watched the flames lick across the bonnet as the man went to work at hacking away at her restraints. She felt the release of pressure as the knife cut through the binds and she fell forward and into the man's awaiting arms. She immediately wound her little arms around his neck and he pulled her gently out of the car window, and set her down on the ground several feet away, where Dragoon and Sally rushed over to lick her face. The man shooed the dogs away and leant down to check her over but instead the girl shook her head adamantly.

"My dad's in that car!" she cried. "You have to help him!"

The man nodded and jogged away to the driver's side of the car. Zoe wrapped her arms around Dragoon and buried her head into the dog's neck, waiting patiently for the man to return with her father. She didn't have to wait long as the man appeared dragging her unconscious father away just as the car became engulfed entirely with flames. The man set Zoe's father down, and she was shocked to find that her father's face was covered in blood.

"Is he going to die?" she asked fearfully.

The man gave her a smile, his eyes crinkling warming. "He'll be fine, sweetie," he assured. "He just needs a little rest." His eyes scanned the little girl's frame, looking for any injuries. "Are you hurt?"

Zoe held her index finger up as it had started to sting. "Just this," she said, showing him a small cut in its side.

The man laughed, took off his warm coat and draped it over her shoulders. It covered her like a tent. "I think you'll be okay too."

Zoe smiled at the gesture. "Thank you for saving us, mister," she said politely.

The man looked surprised at being called, 'mister'. "Please," he insisted. "Call me John."

* * *

Zoe's father had indeed been fine. John had drove them both to the hospital and Ryan had woken up with a couple of fractured ribs and a large cut down the side of his face. After hearing both Zoe's and Ryan's recap of the night, (and a lot of stubbornness on Ryan's behalf) John decided to tell them about the darker world that was veiled in secrecy. He told them how he hunted the things that went bump in the night, and after a whole lot of insisting he took Ryan along for his first hunt: the ghost that had tried to steal their lives that fateful night.

Since then they couldn't go back. John had saved both their lives and Ryan felt they owed him to keep up the fight. They'd been a hunting family ever since.

* * *

A short time later, Dean pulled into an empty spot in front of a modern looking building. They both got out and made their way up a ramp to the restaurant door, Dean pulling it open in a gentlemanly fashion. Zoe thanked him earnestly and stepped into the diner.

A smell of bacon and eggs, fresh coffee beans and something with a hint of vanilla greeted her nose, and Zoe felt her stomach purr with hunger. She led the way to a retro-looking booth, and sat down her fingers seizing upon a menu. As Dean slid in opposite her, a waitress appeared with a notebook and looked at them expectantly.

Dean fired off his order. "I'll have a coffee, black, two sugars. Five rashers of bacon with the rind, three eggs over-easy. Toast, white, loads of butter, not burnt and with the darker crusts cut off." He looked uncertain. "Better make that three sugars," he added before taking in Zoe's bewildered look. "You want some coffee?" he asked.

Zoe shook her head. "No. I don't drink the stuff." She peered one more time at the menu. "Can I just get an Iced Chocolate, please?"

The waitress gave her a grateful look and shimmied off towards the kitchen to give the cook their order.

"You don't drink coffee?" Dean asked, bringing Zoe's attention back to him. "You're not one of those weird religious girls who don't believe in drinking caffeine cause it's a drug, are you?"

"Nope," Zoe laughed. "I'm one of those girls who doesn't drink stuff that tastes like crap. And coffee is definitely crap!"

Dean laughed which caused Zoe's heart to beat uncomfortably against her ribcage. He had a nice laugh, she noticed. It was full of genuine amusement which was something, she realised, she hadn't heard in a long time.

Their food came and Zoe watched as Dean stuffed several slices of bacon, toast and egg into his mouth and washed it down with his coffee. His eating habits definitely left something to be desired, but Zoe couldn't help but find the way his face looked so innocent in the process positively adorable. She hid a goofy grin by taking a long sip of her Iced Chocolate and directing her attention to the patterns on the wallpaper.

They ate in what would be seen as a record time in Zoe's family, and Dean ordered a steaming hot cup of cappuccino and a variety of homemade doughnuts and muffins to go.

"It's for Sam," he explained when he saw Zoe's raised expression.

Dean pulled a couple of wrinkled notes and a small collection of coins from his jean's pocket and slapped them on the table. He declined Zoe's offer to pay her share and together they walked out into the mid-morning sun and got into the Impala.

* * *

The trip back to the hotel was a content one. Feeling well fed, full of good humour and in the company of Dean, it was so easy for Zoe to forget what lay ahead of them. But as the hotel came into view, and Dean parked the car, it all came flooding back to her: there was a monster out there and it had to be destroyed before it could take any more innocent lives. She just hoped Sam had found something that could help them take it down.

As they made their way back up to the hotel rooms, Zoe noticed her father's SUV was still absent and she paused long enough for Dean to sense something was wrong.

"You alright?" he asked with genuine concern.

Zoe nodded. "Yeah," she said, though in reality she wasn't quite certain. "He's never done this before... Just disappeared without a word."

Dean cast his gaze out to where she was looking. "I'm sure it's nothing," he assured, though Zoe sensed he did it half-heartedly, like he didn't really believe what he was saying.

She shrugged and pushed past him, stopping just short of the balcony as she noticed a pacing form outside of their rooms.

"Sam!" Dean's voice called out from just beside her and Zoe watched as the form ceased walking back and forth and turned towards them instead.

Sam looked annoyed. "Dean! What the hell took you so long?!" he demanded.

Dean's hands shot up in surrender, each full of the food he'd bought at the diner. "Easy there, Sammy. We just finished breakfast." He held out Sam's meal to him. "Why didn't you just call me on my cell if your panties were in such a twist?"

"Uh, I tried," Sam said and produced a black cell phone from his pocket. "These things work a whole lot better if the person actually has it on them".

Dean swapped Sam's breakfast for his phone and gave his brother a wicked smile. "Thanks, Sammy. Must've slipped my mind".

"I'm sure," Sam said, though he didn't seem at all convinced.

Zoe watched the exchange between the brothers and couldn't help but smile. She loved the way they interacted with each other and wished she had someone to do the same with. It certainly had been lonely these past few years with only her dad by her side.

"Coming, Zoe?" Sam asked, shaking her from her daze. She must've missed something while she was daydreaming.

"Huh?" she asked stupidly.

"Sam thinks he might know the Pope Licker's weakness," Dean said, holding the hotel door open. "Let's take a look."

Zoe watched as Sam disappeared through the open door and she paused for a moment wondering whether it was at all appropriate or if she should wait for her father. Figuring that she might as well since her father didn't exactly leave her a message (except perhaps a big "screw you" in his unexplained absence) she decided she might as well team up with the brothers than go at it alone. She offered what she hoped was a thankful smile to Dean and slipped into the hotel, feeling Dean's hand guide her at the small of her back towards the twin beds that centred the room. It was identical to her own room, even up to the fading ugly orange paintjob in the bathroom. She watched as the two brothers sat on the sides of their beds, facing each other. Dean looked at Sam expectantly and patted the spot next to him which Zoe surmised meant she should sit there. She did as she was told to, feeling slightly uncomfortable about being in their hotel room.

For all the time Zoe had been hunting with her father – close to 6 years now – she could not stir a memory of ever having been in a male's room. She didn't know what the big deal was. It wasn't as if they were nude magazines strewn about the room. Perhaps it was her upbringing that caused the nervousness to wreak havoc on her insides.

Zoe's father had once been a man of faith, and although he had turned his back on a lot of things, he had brought his daughter up as proper as he could. They were often looked on as an "old fashioned" family with too many morals. A lot of hunters wondered how the hell they could find a place for morals when so much of what they did called for them to be immoral. But somehow they'd found a peace between the two, and her father really respected her for her choices. He was actually quite proud of her for making them.

Zoe looked on as Sam woke his computer up from its sleeping status and positioned the screen on his lap so they could all see it. A picture of a man in his mid-forties appeared on the screen. "Silus Garner," Sam explained. "As well as the legend of the Pope Lick Monster I also found a legend of a ghost train."

Dean held up a hand to stop his brother. "I don't mean to burst your bubble there, Sammy, but I'm pretty sure that train the other night was real. Real enough to flatten us to a pulp."

Sam nodded. "I know," he said flicking through tabbed windows. "But I think there is an actual ghost train that travels over that trestle. The Pope Lick Monster's train crashed there. He was the only one who walked away from that crash. I bet the circus folk are the ghost train's passengers and I think Silus is trying to get the monster back on his train and I also think that's who's been calling us."

Dean shook his head exasperatedly. "Sam, the Licker's using that song to get us where he wants us. You're over-thinking this."

"Am I, Dean?" Sam asked.

"I don't think you are, Sam," Zoe interrupted, thinking back to last night. She turned her attention towards Dean and began pleading her case. "Dean, when the monster heard that song he became livid. He seemed confused at first but then he just became enraged. I don't think that is his song at all. I think Sam's right."

Dean ran a hand through his hair and sighed in defeat. "Alright! What's the friggin' plan?"

Sam grinned at Zoe. "Well, the plan is to get the monster up on the trestle just before the ghost train comes to take him away. I think the reason why it didn't come last time has to do with the timing, and I think this song holds the key."

Sam tapped a key and the lyrics to "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" flashed on the screen. Zoe and Dean leant forward to read them. By the second line, they both shared a look of dismay.

"You gotta be kiddin' me," Zoe muttered.

"Midnight?" Dean asked incredulously. "You want us to go up to the trestle at midnight and wait for a train that may or may not come." He stood up so quickly that Sam almost dropped his laptop in surprise. "Sure, Sammy. We'll just ask the Pope Licker to sit there quietly while we wait for Scotty to beam him up!"

Sam shoved his laptop into Zoe's arms and stood up to face off against his brother. "You got a better idea, Dean?" he challenged.

"Sure!" Dean argued. "We go in, guns blazing. Shoot first, ask questions later. I thought that's what you wanted!"

"I do!" Sam yelled back, then feeling his resolve mitigate, he lowered his voice. "Dean, you know I do. But that thing, I shot it through the heart. It fell a couple of hundred feet and it's still alive. We need to be smart about this. We've got to think it through. If we don't and it kills again, that's on us."

Zoe found herself looking back at the door. She felt like the room had shrunk three times in size and she really just wanted to get out. She was never very good in these types of situations.

The Winchester brothers were still looking at each other with stubborn conviction, neither of them saying a thing. Quietly, Zoe pushed the laptop onto the other side of the bed where it wasn't likely to get crushed by Dean when he decided he'd had enough of sizing his brother up. She stood up slowly and tried to tip-toe softly away but at the first sign of movement the brothers broke apart and looked at her with sheepish expressions like they were surprised to find that she'd been in the room the whole entire time.

Zoe pointed at the door, "I'll just um-"

"Stay," Dean insisted and with slow deliberate movements he sat down again. Zoe and Sam followed suit, and watched as Dean exhaled through his teeth. "Should we keep an eye out for whipper-whatsies?"

Sam found himself laugh despite his inner turmoil over his brother's last remarks. "Whippoorwills, and no, I don't think we need to worry about those," he grinned tiredly and Zoe realised there were a lot of secrets in this one family. "Does this mean we're going on a midnight hunt?"

Dean murmured, "Only if Zoe here is okay with that."

They both looked towards her expectantly.

_Oh sure, put me on the spot_, she thought quietly to herself. Out loud, she sighed and said, "Midnight, it is."

Sam gave her a boyish grin, while Dean clapped his hands together with satisfaction. If nothing else, tonight would be very interesting.

* * *

**A/N: **Well that was Chapter Three, what'd you think? Please take the time out to rate and review. I'll post Chapter Four tomorrow which will tie up the Pope Lick Monster hunt. Then we can move on to something else.


	4. Never The Same

**A/N: **I feel really stupid. I just realised I was asking people to review and I'd turned off anonymous reviews, so I'm really sorry for that! I may have been a member of the site for 2 years but I'm still just a n00b ( So reviews are much appreciated. Comments, criticism. Anything really. Uhm, Zoe is a few months younger than Sam. I will put it in later. I figured this chapter is long enough as it is. Also I accidentally posted this to the site too soon before so I apologise to anyone who just got that message. My laptop decided it would click the add button before I was ready (

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing of Supernatural... Like every girl reading this I'd love to own Dean though. I'd make him pet my kitties all day loooong D

* * *

**CHAPTER FOUR**

As the hours ticked by Zoe found herself looking more and more at her watch. The hands on the dial told her ten o'clock had just come and gone and a quick glance outside revealed that her father's SUV was still nowhere to be seen.

Sam and Dean were discussing the final details of the plan while Zoe listened half-heartedly and kept an ear out for any approaching vehicles.

"I still don't like using you as bait," Dean muttered, looking towards Zoe. "What if something happens?"

She sighed, turned away from the window and gave him her full attention. "This is the best plan we have," she said. "The monster's already tried to kill me once-"

"Exactly!" Dean looked at her like she was insane.

Zoe ignored him and went on. "-so he'll probably try to do me in again. If we use you or Sam he may not even bother." Dean looked unconvinced while Sam seemed to have trouble admitting she was right. "Look, you said so yourself. My father told you that he'd crossed the trestle without anything happening. The monster wanted me. So let's give him what he wants." She didn't know how but she knew this plan would fail if she wasn't the one up there on that trestle at midnight.

"And what if something happens? What if Sam's wrong about all this?" Dean looked at Sam apologetically. "Sorry dude, no offense."

Sam shrugged in an offhand gesture. "None taken," he said.

Dean looked back at Zoe. "The point is," he began insistently. "You'll be up there alone. If Sam's wrong then that clock will strike midnight and nothing will happen."

"Well that's why I'll have you two nearby to protect me," she confidently pointed out.

Sam looked uncomfortable. "We won't be able to be too close. If we do and the monster sees us he might realise we're setting a trap."

Dean jerked his head towards where Zoe was still shooting the occasional glance at the parking lot outside. "Not to mention we're short one person," he added sardonically

Zoe nodded, feeling like she'd been gutted. "I know," she said softly, feeling embarrassed by her father's unknown whereabouts.

She'd tried to reach him on his cell phone several (hundred) times already in the last couple of hours. Every attempt had the same result. It rang and rang but no one answered. Each time it rang out and she was directed to his voicemail where she left a frantic message and told him to call her back as soon as he could. She still hadn't heard anything though, and now she was really beginning to worry. Surely he wouldn't have gone off to tackle the monster himself? Well, wherever he was she would have to be strong. She couldn't miss making him look back in his absence.

"I'll be okay," Zoe said and met Dean's worried gaze with her own determined one. "I'm a hunter. If I have to, I'll fight the monster off."

"Oh, sure. Just like last time right?" Dean asked sarcastically.

Zoe soured. "He got the jump on me!" She protested angrily. "This time is different. I'll be ready for him."

Usually she stood at only a mere 5'3 but right now Zoe felt like she towered over both the Winchester men. Her fierce determination showed clearly in her face and Dean decided perhaps it was best to bite his tongue. At least for now.

"Fine," he conceded. "I'm just saying I don't like this."

"Me either," Sam agreed. "But what choice do we have?"

"Fine," Dean repeated, his steady gaze fixed on Zoe. "We're leaving in five minutes. It's going to be freezing on that trestle so make sure you grab some warmer clothes. We'll meet you at the car."

Zoe nodded, and made her way out of their hotel room and into her own. The room was exactly how she had left it: most of her belongings strewn over the bed while her father's bags sat neatly at the foot of his. The sight of his things made her feel dreadfully alone and as she sat down miserably beside his bags her hand fished her phone out of her pocket. Flipping it open, her fingers immediately began dialling numbers and she pressed the phone to her ear and listened. She prayed silently, becoming more and more desperate with every ring that she heard. Nine rings later and her call was booted to voicemail and Ryan's monotonous pre-recorded message greeted her requesting that she left a message.

"Dad?" Zoe said tentatively into the receiver. "It's me. Look, I don't know where you are but this is really starting to freak me out." She sighed deeply, wondering what else she could say. "The guys and I are heading up to Pope Lick Creek. I really hope you didn't go up there alone."

An image of her father's body lying broken and bloodied at the bottom of Pope Lick Creek forced itself into her mind. She pushed it away leaving a painful lump to form in her throat which felt so large and constricting that she could barely get the next few words out. "Dad? Wherever you are, please just... just give me a call so I know you're okay. I love you... We'll... We'll talk soon okay?" The last word was a desperate plea and as Zoe hit the "Call End" button she couldn't help but utter a sob, which she quickly silenced into her open palm. She needed to stay positive. Her father was safe, she had to believe that.

Taking a deep, steadying breath Zoe got shakily to her feet. She switched her clothes for a long-sleeved t-shirt, a polar fleece hooded jacket and a pair of her warmest jeans. She didn't bother with anything else. Dean and Sam would surely have enough gear to share around. With her cell phone secure in her pocket, she opened the hotel door and stopped, looking back at her father's empty bed. "Be safe," she whispered, closing the door behind her.

* * *

Pope Lick Creek hadn't changed. The moon was brighter tonight, which they were all grateful for. Still, they'd brought flashlights and their individual beams sliced through the night, revealing the lock on the gate had been replaced.

"Crap," Dean muttered, the large padlock gleaming under their flashlights as if antagonising them. "Smokey the Bear moves fast out here."

They'd travelled light too, and Zoe highly doubted that Sam or Dean had a pair of bolt cutters stashed down their pants.

Sam walked over to the fence and gave the padlock a good shake. After determining that it was much to secure his gaze followed the fence to the top. "Up and over?" he asked.

Zoe glanced uncertainly at the 4 rows of razor-sharp barbed wire that looked like they would tear a person to shreds if they ever got the chance. She wondered how exactly they were going to get around this obstacle. It wasn't like it was a small fence. It would have easily been over 8 foot.

"We'll use your jacket," Dean instructed.

Sam looked clearly taken aback. "What, why?" he demanded.

"Because," Dean said and brushed at his own in admiration. "This is genuine leather."

Sam gawked at his brother in a 'you can't be serious' kind of way, but judging from the look on Dean's face this was one of the few things he was serious about.

Sam threw up his hands. "Fine," he muttered in disbelief and ripped off his jacket.

Sam walked over to the fence line and like he was attempting a slam dunk, jumped up and flung his jacket over the rows of wire so they covered the brutal barbs evenly. Zoe watched as he moved back several paces and then launched himself at a run towards the fence, his hands pulling him up as his feet scrambled for footholds. Once he was over the top wire he let himself drop, landing on his feet at the opposite side of the fence without any difficulty whatsoever.

Zoe looked uneasy. She knew what her body was capable of, and it certainly wasn't capable of that.

Dean sensed her apprehension and went and stood at the fence, cupping his hands and holding them at his knee. "I'll give you a boost," he offered.

Zoe was grateful. She joined him at the fence, sliding her foot into his hands and placing a hand on his strong, muscular back to keep her balance. Dean hoisted her up with ease, and she tangled her fingers in the fence and started to pull herself up. Her free foot found an easy hold and as her hands crept upwards she felt Dean shift under her. A split second later and she felt his hand on her backside, pushing her up towards the top of the fence. She yelped, her foot losing its traction and connecting with something solid.

"Ow!" she heard from below, and then the distinct sound of Sam sniggering.

Zoe quickly pulled herself over the side of the fence and let go as she felt Sam's sturdy arms secure her. He lowered her slowly to the ground, and as a third person landed beside them, Zoe turned to see Dean cupping half of his face.

"Jeez, poke my eye out why don't you?" he muttered.

As Sam retrieved his now holey jacket from the fence and batted at it with his hand in annoyance, Zoe looked at Dean anxiously.

"I'm sorry! You caught me off guard!" She moved his hand away and took his face into her palms. "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?"

Dean seemed surprised at first by their contact, but then he couldn't have looked happier. He gave Zoe a huge grin and said without missing a beat, "I could definitely think of at least one thing." His eyes held a profound hunger there that Zoe had never seen before. At least not directed at her.

Sam cleared his throat, shrugging his shoulders into his jacket. "Hate to spoil another perfect opportunity for a girl to shoot you down, Dean," he said, and watched as a startled Zoe let go of Dean, wearing a sheepish expression on her face. "It's just we've gotta get moving. It's a quarter to midnight."

Zoe nodded and casting her flashlight out she began to make her way up the path that would lead her towards the trestle.

"Maybe later then?" Dean asked hopefully.

Zoe ignored him. She didn't mean to be rude. It just wasn't a question she'd ever been asked. Besides how exactly was one supposed to decline such an offer without appearing a total prude?

As Sam moved to follow Zoe, Dean grabbed him by his jacket. "Thanks a lot, man. Really!" he hissed.

Zoe stopped, sensing neither guys were following her lead. As she looked back to find a harassed-looking Sam held in place by a none-too-happy Dean, she frowned. "You okay, Sam?"

Sam pried his brother's fingers from his jacket. "I'm fine," he replied, smiling assuredly. He walked away from his now gawking brother and stood next to Zoe. "Shall we?" he asked, inviting her to go first with a sweep of his hand.

Watching on in perplexity as Zoe started back up the track and Sam fell into step behind her, Dean felt a stab of envy. "Oh sure," he called after their retreating backs. "I'm fine too, thanks for asking! It's not like anyone kicked me in the head with the heel of their boot or nothing!"

* * *

Déjà vu struck Zoe with the devastation of a freight train. The trestle was as eerie as she remembered, and just like last night here she now stood on it over a hundred feet in the air. The only difference tonight was that she held a newly borrowed Baretta model 92 handgun instead of her Browning 9mm. Dean had convinced her that her gun was probably soaking in a big pile of "Licker" excrement by now after the magnificent swan dive off the trestle ("Dude, I saw the look on his face. He totally shit himself when he realised he was going over!").

It was hard to for Zoe to admit that she'd never see her gun again. She'd formed a special bond with it over the last few years and the beretta felt all wrong. But she'd rather be armed with a gun that felt like it was made for someone else than to not have one at all.

Zoe ejected the magazine and checked it for the hundredth time to make sure it really was loaded. Then seeing that the bullets hadn't magically disappeared she shoved it back into place, pulled back the slide, released it and started across the trestle.

Zoe looked around, her heart hammering in her chest. She knew somewhere out there Sam and Dean were watching. Hidden in the foliage, ready to rush to her rescue if she needed it. She only hoped that if she did get into any trouble they'd make it to her in time.

Zoe was thankful that Dean had urged her to wear warm clothing. The wind blew with arctic-cold conviction up here, its knives of spine-piercing ice slashing at every piece of exposed flesh it could find. Zoe desperately wanted to bow her head and fold her arms around her body to shield her from the cruel gale. Her hair whipped wildly, stinging her face and her vision blurred from the tears the cold air was demanding. She just hoped she'd be able to see well enough to fire her gun and have the bullet actually hit its mark this time.

At least Zoe wouldn't have to worry about any earthly trains mowing her down this time. Sam had checked the online schedule for any trains running over the Pope Lick Creek trestle and the last one had come at 11.05pm, so that was one less worry in her mind.

By the time Zoe reached the middle of the trestle she felt nauseous. She held her flashlight over the top of her berettain-depth, and turned slowly in a full circle. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Just an empty trestle and the typical sounds of night. Maybe she'd made a mistake. Perhaps the goatman was no longer interested in her.

Zoe shrugged her shoulders in the darkness, hoping Sam and Dean would see the gesture and understand her confusion. She turned around back the way she'd come and just as she was taking her first steps to getting the hell off the trestle she felt a vibration at her right buttock.

Suddenly a childish laugh and an equally childish voice began to sing "The Snuggle Song". Zoe groaned inwardly at the anonymous call and put a stop to the Schnuffel Bunny's trill voice by reefing her phone out of her back pocket and flipping it open.

"Definitely need to change that ringtone," she muttered while putting the phone to her ear.

"—Zoe?" Sam's voice came spluttering through, crackling static cutting off some of his words.

"Sam?" Zoe asked disbelievingly. "What the hell?! Are you trying to get me killed or something?!"

"— move – can't hear – down "

Zoe swung her gun in an arc, then paced back and forth as she tried desperately to hear Sam's words. "This is impossible, Sam!" she shouted into the receiver. "I can't hear a word you're saying!"

"Zoe!" Sam yelled and he sounded much clearer now.

Zoe stopped her pacing. "What do you want, Sam?!" she demanded, not feeling like having a friendly conversation when she was over a hundred feet in the air and there could be a crazed goatman anywhere nearby.

"You need to move!" Sam ordered. "Further up the trestle."

Zoe took a gulp of cold air into her lungs. "What? Why?!" she asked, her voice sounding high and scared.

The phone beeped in her ear and as she looked down the words "Call Ended" flashed on the screen.

_Great, _she thought to herself. _What the hell am I supposed to do now?_

Zoe noticed that the clock on her phone was showing her that it was just a little over a two and a half minutes till midnight. Surely she couldn't get into that much trouble in just a few minutes.

Juggling the phone and her flashlight in one hand and her gun in the other she began to inch further down the trestle, her eyes swivelling back and forward as she searched for danger. She had only gone 20 paces when her phone began to vibrate again, startling her so much that she almost dropped the phone and shot off a round from her gun at the same time.

Zoe's heart lodged in her throat as the voice that had become so very familiar crooned into the darkness.

"Hear that lonesome whippoorwill,  
He sounds too blue to fly."

Zoe whipped her gun around, facing each direction as she did so. To say she was scared was putting it mildly, she was absolutely terrified. But she couldn't let the fear consume her. There were people's lives at stake here, including her own. She had to master that fear and use it to her advantage any way she possibly could.

Zoe slipped her phone into her easily accessible jacket pocket, and with keen eyes at the ready and her body turned to one side, edged slowly across the trestle and towards the opposite side she had come in on. She only had perhaps fifty feet left to go and she would have been off the trestle when she felt it: an evil presence that lingered back the way she came. She didn't want to look but she knew she had to.

Slowly and begrudgingly Zoe turned her head, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the calamity standing still as a statue. It watched her with the malice that came from hundreds of years of being tormented by humans. It didn't just hate her. It despised her. It wanted to cause her agony. It wanted to cackle as her bones shattered, to leer at her as she took her last painful breath, and to watch in ecstacy as her carcass became something completely unrecognisable. Perhaps it had been tortured in its long life, stuck in a circus where it had been poked and prodded and portrayed as something to be afraid of. And certainly it had been used to further another person's fame and fortune, but there was no reason for this. It was evil. Pure and simple, and it was a monster and as Dean had clearly stated, if it was a monster they were to kill it.

The song at Zoe's hip continued to play, the goatman's focus angry as it tried to pinpoint the location of the music.

Zoe brought her weapon up at the ready, using her opponent's distraction to her advantage. She'd pulled the trigger before she even had to think about it. The handgun kicked slightly in her hand as the bullet was propelled out from the chamber and slammed into the goatman's chest. The monster stumbled backwards, its facial features contorted into a silent scream of bewilderment and fury. Zoe watched as a thin trickle of blood ran down the centre of the goatman's chest.

_Right through the heart, _Zoe thought.

The monster bellowed. Zoe feeling certain it was going to topple over the trestle relaxed her weapon but in the next moment it had righted itself and was charging straight for her. Once again she raised her weapon and pumped bullet after bullet into its hideous body. Seven, eight, nine rounds... until she heard a noise that was scarier than any sound the Pope Lick Monster could ever make: Click.

_Shit!_ Zoe yelled inwardly, her brain immediately processing that she was out of bullets, while her finger still pushed down on the trigger as if willing a bullet to appear out of thin air. _Shit, shit, shit!_

Zoe watched as the creature stood erect on its two powerful legs and began shuffling toward her, its open wounds bleeding profusely but seemingly having no effect whatsoever on the beast.

Chancing a look behind her, Zoe surmised that she'd never make it to the other side of the trestle in time. The monster would spring, take her down and in all probability throw her over the edge of the trestle to meet her maker. She would have to make a stand and hope to whatever higher power that was looking out for her that it was enough until either Sam and Dean appeared to save her, or the ghost train materialized to claim its last passenger.

Without a second thought, Zoe threw her flashlight at the monster, her aim perfectly accurate as it smashed into its face, a sickening thud resonating through the night. The monster howled angrily, lunging towards her as Zoe directed a well aimed kick towards its torso. As soon as her foot connected, she pushed out with it causing the creature to stagger back several paces. It quickly regained its composure and started for her again.

"Why won't you stay down?!" Zoe demanded, and as she was preparing a snap-kick to its head the tables turned and the monster seized her foot. It threw her violently to the ground, its inhuman strength making it seem like she weighed a couple of mere pounds. Her useless gun skittered away and out of reach.

Zoe lay there for several moments, dazed and disorientated. She couldn't keep this up. While her attacks seem to do nothing to subdue the monster, they were indeed having a draining effect on her. In no time at all she would be utterly exhausted and she didn't know how many more blows like that last one she could take. She was only human after all.

"The silence of a falling star,  
Lights up a purple sky.  
And as I wonder where you are,  
I'm so lonesome I could cry."

The song was once again winding down and as soon as the last string was strummed, Zoe staggered to her feet and wondered where the hell that bloody train was.

The monster seemed rejuvenated now that the song was finished. In one leap he was in front of Zoe, his powerful fingers closing around her neck as he lifted her off the ground. She tried to kick out at him, but his strength far surpassed her own and his grip grew tighter and tighter until her feet dangled uselessly in midair. Zoe's lungs screamed for air, but none came. White dots danced in her vision and she knew any second now she was going to lose consciousness.

Zoe was falling. Falling into an endless sea of unrecognisable faces cloaked in absolute darkness. Somehow she knew they were watching her as their greedy skeletal fingers reached out to skim across her milky skin. She recoiled from their touch, and tried to hide her head away so she wouldn't have to see what they would do to her. But she couldn't. She was still falling.

Without warning, Zoe felt the pressure on her neck release and she fell to the ground with a painful crash. Her brain didn't register what was going on immediately, but as her oxygen deprivation subsided she saw that the blade of a huge hunting knife was protruding through the goatman's neck and right through its chin. It had been skewered!

Ten long fingers were wrapped around the knife's hilt and Zoe noticed that one of them was wearing a familiar silver ring. The monster twisted and squirmed, held at the mercy of the wielder of the knife. Fresh rivulets of blood gushed from the wound and down the creature's chest. Each time it squirmed it made the gash wider, until Zoe was certain it was going to behead itself.

"What do you think, Sammy?" Dean yelled from behind the monster. "Off with its freaky head?"

Zoe twisted her pounding head and saw Sam a short way off, his weapon raised and aimed at the creature's head in case it were to try something.

"You okay, Zoe?" Sam asked, not taking his eyes off the monster.

Zoe tested her limbs and was relieved to find they were all still intact. "I'm alright," she replied, slowly gathering herself into a sitting position. She wasn't sure if she was able to stand up just yet without being violently ill.

"What the hell were you thinking coming way out here?" Dean demanded.

Zoe's mouth opened then closed like a stunned mullet. But Sam had called her, hadn't he? She looked at Sam but he seemed to be as anxious to know what she was doing on this side of the trestle as Dean had been.

"You didn't call..." she murmured, talking more to herself.

Sam needed an explanation. "What?" he asked.

She looked up at him, realisation dawning on her face. "When I was in the middle of the trestle, my phone rang. It was you on the other end."

Dean shook his head, and it was almost comical the way they all stood around and chatted with a dangerous monster in their midst. "Sam didn't call, no way!" Dean said adamantly. "I was with him. We were sitting there, watching and all of a sudden you start walking off like you just made best friends with Tinkerbelle."

A memory of her father telling her about the Pope Lick Monster played in Zoe head. "Some sort of hypnosis" he'd said. Perhaps the monster really could make a person imagine they were hearing a loved one in trouble. Perhaps it could even make the person think they were talking on a cell phone when in reality they were probably having an in-depth conversation with themselves.

"You weren't on the phone, Zo," Sam added, confirming her suspicions.

So that day on the creek bed she hadn't spoken to her father at all. She felt stupid now for not asking. She'd almost gotten Dean killed for her idiocy.

Dean groaned as the struggle to keep the monster in place took its toll. "Sammy, any moment now this thing's gonna work out how to un-shish kebab itself. You need to grab Zoe and get the hell out of here!"

Zoe's voice caught in her throat at the thought of leaving Dean all alone with the creature. She looked over to Sam to find out why he wasn't protesting when she noticed that he bore a huge smile on his face and his gaze was fixated on something far off in the distance behind her.

"Sam?!" Dean cried insistently.

As Zoe followed Sam's gaze she couldn't help but utter a gasp. There slicing through the trees at an astonishing rate was a beam of light much the same as the one Zoe had seen just last night. Only this light was different. Its hue was more of an eerie blue than white and it seemed to dance and bob like a flame before Zoe's very eyes.

A sickening gargle coming from the goatman made Zoe turn her attention back towards the monster. Its eyes were wide with absolute terror as it watched the beam of light descend down upon the trestle. Together, the four of them watched as a train of the same eerie blue hue streaked behind the light and although the trestle did not vibrate and shake like it normally did when a train passed over it, the sound was deafening.

From where she sat Zoe could see that it was a steam locomotive, and a cloud of eerie blue smoke was billowing out of its chimney. And although it had a passenger all ready and waiting to go, it really didn't look like it was about to stop.

"Uhm, should we be up here?" Zoe asked and watched as Sam's smile evaporated into uncertainty. Fear flooded his eyes.

"Dean!" he shouted over the roar of the train. "We've gotta get the hell off this trestle!"

Zoe watched as Sam sprinted over to her, stashed his gun in the back of his jeans and gathered her into his arms. She knew they'd never outrun it. Their escape route was just too far away and the train was so close. There was nowhere to run to.

Sam rushed to the side of the trestle, Zoe catching a full view of the creek bed far too many feet below. Surely Sam wasn't stupid enough to think they'd be able to survive such a drop. She wound herself tightly around Sam and clung to him like a skittish cat that had just been introduced to the neighbourhood dog.

Sam turned back to his brother who still had the monster paralysed at the end of his knife. It was writhing in pain, its eyes almost popping out of its mangled skull as it watched the train's progress.

"Dean!! We've gotta go!!" Sam bellowed.

Zoe watched as Dean shook his head, the train looming ever closer. "You go!" Dean commanded. "I gotta do this right, Sammy! This thing can't be allowed to come back! I gotta ride it out 'til the end!"

After seeing that Sam hadn't made a move to go, Dean turned on him. "Take Zoe and get your ass off this bridge, Sam! That's an order!"

Sam looked torn. He wanted to stay with his brother, but he also had the girl in his arms to think about.

Finally Sam nodded, faced the edge of the trestle and yelled without turning back, "You better be alive when I get back or I swear to God you're gonna wish you were an only child!"

The train was almost upon them. Zoe snuck one last fleeting glance at Dean. The valiant knight looked ever so courageous as he faced the peril head on.

Unable to watch any longer, Zoe buried her face against in the crook of Sam's neck and prayed silently that Dean would be okay.

"Sam...?" she breathed against him, and Sam responded by holding her tighter. Closing her eyes tightly, she entrusted her life to him.

Without delaying it any longer Sam's stepped off the trestle, the cold wind rushing past both his and Zoe's embraced bodies as they fell towards the earth. Sam's free hand slapped against the first cross railing of the trestle's foundation, and his hand seized upon it. With a jerk their descent ceased. The force of the sudden halt caused him to lose his grip on Zoe and with a cry she began to plummet towards the ground. Sam grabbed for her, and was just able to wrap his fingers around her wrist stopping her descent. They dangled precariously, a 90 foot drop looming below them.

Sam was glad that the trestle didn't vibrate with the ghost train crossing over it. If it had, Sam wasn't sure he would have been able to hang on. He could hear Dean flaunting his usual antics off the trestle.

"All aboard for Freaksville. Population: you, my freaky friend!" Dean antagonised from above. "Hey, maybe you and the Bearded Lady can get your **freak **on!"

Sam would have smiled if the situation hadn't been so dire. He hated not being able to see what was going on.

The train was deafening as it thundered overhead. Sam heard his brother scream in what Sam could only surmise was pain. He felt hopeless. He wanted to rush to his brother's side but the ghastly glow of the train had expanded and was now encompassing the whole trestle. He had to close his eyes it was so damn bright. He could hear the Pope Lick Monster now, screaming in utter terror, its punctured throat making it the eeriest sound that Sam had ever heard, and that was saying something.

Then as quick as it had all began, silence filled the air and the eerie haze faded. The darkness was penetrated only by the light of the moon as the creatures of the night composed themselves and launched into blissful song.

Sam blinked a few times, struggling to prioritise what he should focus on first. Something moved in his hand and he looked down in alarm.

Zoe looked back up at him with wide, fearful eyes.

"Please don't drop me!" she begged, gripping his wrist tightly.

"I won't!" Sam grunted, his muscles complaining as he began to haul her back up into his arms.

Zoe wrapped her arms tightly around him and inhaled Sam's sweet masculine scent of faint spicy citrus mixed with sweat. It was comforting to be in his embrace but something kept niggling in the back of her mind.

"Where's Dean?!" she panicked.

Sam didn't say a word. Instead he just took her hand and began climbing up the trestle's beam, Zoe following along clumsily.

When they reached the top Sam heaved himself up and onto the trestle before leaning over and pulling her up too. Standing on the bridge, they looked around. It was deserted. No Dean, no monster, no train, nothing.

"Dean?!" Sam yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth.

Zoe's heart was frantic. She moved to the edge of the trestle and scanned the bottom of the creek, looking for a body. She couldn't see one but that didn't mean a thing. It was pretty dark down there.

Sam moved down the trestle, calling out his brother's name over and over again. With every moment that passed without response, he became more and more desperate.

Zoe bit her lip. It was all her fault. If Dean was... No, he couldn't be. She wouldn't believe it. She couldn't believe it.

Zoe kept scanning the area, looking for something, anything really, that would reveal what had happened to Dean. She was just about to turn away when something wet and sticky grabbed at her foot. She screamed and stamped on the thing that was blindly searching for her leg.

"Stop!" the thing yelled, and then louder, "Ow, I said stop!" as Zoe stamped on it again.

Zoe stopped stamping the thing long enough to realise it was a blood-covered hand, and it hadn't actually been the one yelling for her to stop. Its owner popped his head over the side, a pained smile on his face.

"This is about me touching your butt, isn't it?" he asked.

"Dean!?" she cried in disbelief.

Zoe's face broke out into a huge grin and she bent down and hugged Dean's head tightly, ignoring his protests.

"Don't you ever do that again!" she scolded.

"Dean!" Sam had noticed the commotion and he'd come running back.

"Little help here, Sammy!" Dean called, his head still in Zoe's hold.

Sam knelt down next to Zoe, seized his brother by the back of his leather jacket and started to pull him up. Zoe released him from her death grip and Dean was able to hoist himself onto the rails.

He lay on his back and gave a relieved chuckle. "That was a close one," he mused.

Sam stared down at Dean's bloody hand. "What happened?" he asked anxiously.

Dean wiped his hand on his jeans, staining them crimson. "Bastard took a chunk right outta me," he explained, showing them the back of his hand where a piece of flesh had been ripped out.

Zoe grimaced as her stomach twisted into a knot. She still wasn't great with gore. She pulled her gaze from his hand and looked at his face instead. "Is it gone?"

Dean nodded, took a handkerchief out of his jacket and began tying it around his hand. "Yeah," he said. "I'd already bailed by that time, but I saw what happened."

Dean began to relay how the goatman, sensing that its end was near, had pulled out its final trump card. It'd clearly taken Dean by surprise when it used the last of its strength to rear its ugly head back, its teeth snapping closed around the back of Dean's hand. Dean had let go then, the knife slid out of the too-large hole in its neck and had clattered to the trestle's rails. The monster tried to flee as Dean dove to safety, hanging onto the side of the trestle with only one good hand, but it hadn't gotten very far.

Silus Garner had appeared at the open cab door then. He was dressed in a black frock suit and in one of his hands he held a gold pocket watch. His long, shaggy hair was translucent, his fathomless eyes endless pits of despair and the wrinkles on his face more predominant. Silus looked tired, he wanted to go home.

As the train caught up with the fleeing goatman, Silus' hand shot out and slapped a pair of ancient shackles on the monster's wrists. Silus' lips parted and smiled without humour.

"It's time for our last show, my freak," he whispered almost inaudibly, inciting several more hands to reach out from behind Silus and seize the monster. They quickly pulled him into the train.

The goatman screeched and tried to fight but it was a wasted feat. The door closed, silencing him, and the train thundered off into the distance before disappearing into thin air as it hit the end of the trestle.

Zoe was relieved to hear it was over. So relieved in fact that she jumped up and hugged Sam and Dean in turn. She felt like dancing, and whooping and laughing all at the same time. And so she did.

Dean gave her a wary look. "You'd swear you'd never hunted before," he accused.

Zoe stopped in mid-whoop. "I have too!" she protested with her hands on her hips.

"First time without your dad?" Sam guessed and she nodded meekly.

"Remind me when we get back to the hotel to grab a bottle of Jack so we can toast to popping Zoe's cherry," Dean told Sam.

Zoe gave him a dirty look. "You're a pig!" she said scathingly, and stalked off in the opposite direction.

Sam jogged to keep up with her.

"I meant your hunting cherry, sheez!" Dean called after her, still laying on the tracks. "As if I'd be popping your actual cherry with my brother. That would just be wrong!"

Sam stopped and looked hesitantly back at his brother.

"What?" Dean demanded.

Sam folded his arms over his chest. "I was just debating on whether or not I should tell you that the next train'll be here in about five minutes," he shrugged. "But hey, if you're comfortable where you are..."

Dean sighed and got to his feet. "Now, that's just cold, dude," he said, gathering up their discarded weapons and following them off the trestle.

* * *

It was after 2am when the Impala started to pull into the Red Roof Inn and Zoe noticed a familiar silhouette at the curb getting into an identically familiar SUV.

_Just what in the hell is he doing? _she wondered.

As she kept watching the SUV's headlights illuminated and the brake lights flickered on and then off as the SUV began to reverse. She leant over and seized Dean's shoulder.

"Stop the car!" she shouted, and Dean cursed before slamming his foot on the brake.

The Impala fishtailed and screeched to a halt. A cry from the back seat was heard as Sam knocked his head, though Zoe barely registered it because in the next second she was throwing open the door and rushing out into the freezing night air. Her arms pumped furiously as her legs worked overtime.

"Dad?!" she screamed.

She saw his face in the rearview mirror, saw the way his eyes smiled sadly as they met her bewildered ones and then he was speeding away from her. Driving at a speed she couldn't have hoped to match. Still, Zoe refused to admit she was beat. She ran faster and faster until the muscles in her legs were screaming so loud for her to stop that they gave out under her and she hit the ground with such a force she ended up ripping open her jeans at the knees.

Though she knew he must have seen her, her father didn't ease off the accelerator. In fact he pushed it down further until it slammed against the floor, and in no time at all him and the SUV had been swallowed up by the darkness. Zoe pounded her fists angrily against the tarmac, and she howled like a wounded creature. Two sets of running footsteps grew close and came to a halt right in front of her. The closer of the two kneeled in front of her, but she didn't look up at him.

"He just kept going... I couldn't stop him..." she whispered bitterly, feeling utterly hollow inside. Like something or someone had reached in and ripped out her still beating heart to leave a hole so huge that it consumed everything that had once resided within her. "Why didn't he stop?" she asked, and looked up surprised to find that it was actually Sam kneeling down in front of her.

"I don't know," he whispered, and traced his thumb across each of her eyes, revealing to Zoe that she had been crying and hadn't even noticed.

Under normal circumstances she would have been immensely embarrassed, but right now she didn't care who saw her tears.

"But it's okay, Zoe," Sam assured her soothingly. "You can come with us, it'll be okay."

Zoe laughed cynically. Right now she didn't feel like anything was ever going to be okay. Her father had up and left her without so much as an explanation for Christ sake.

Zoe's thoughts grinded to a halt, and she stood up so fast that she almost made Sam lose his footing. Without so much as a backwards glance she was striding quickly across the car park, ignoring both Dean as he insisted she stop and the stinging at her knees where thick streams of blood had began to flow down her legs.

She flew up the stairs two at a time, thrusting open her hotel door and taking a couple of steps inside. Her eyes took in the scene in one quick sweep of the room. It appeared undisturbed from earlier that night except for two things. Her father's bags were now gone and two objects lay on his neatly made bed.

The first was her father's cell phone, looking like it usually did except for the fact that the second item, a Bowie knife in the shape of a coffin, had been plunged right through the middle of its screen.

"Because a note that said 'quit calling me' would have been too much trouble," Dean muttered scathingly from the open door.

Zoe turned to see that both Sam and Dean had followed her. Dean looked around at the scene with evident anger while Sam seemed to be assessing Zoe's mental stability.

"What do you want to do?" Sam asked Zoe hesitantly.

Zoe knew there was no point in trying to find her father. For whatever reason he had chose to go off on his own and if he didn't want to be found, then he'd make sure he couldn't be tracked. She didn't understand his cutthroat attitude. He had become so callous and cold in the last 24 hours.

Zoe inhaled sharply, and wiped away a stray tear that had streaked down her cheek. Her gaze hardened and she gritted her teeth. "I want to get the hell out of here!" she said forcefully.

* * *

Ten minutes later they were all packed and ready to go, the Impala roaring to life. Dean did a U-Turn and headed for the highway. Zoe rested her head against the cool glass of the backseat window. The three of them were silent as Dean sped out of Louisville each sifting through their own endless thoughts.

Eventually Dean spoke up. "Last time I checked none of us had taken a vow of silence."

Sam groaned and covered his face with his hand. "Didn't you ever hear the expression 'silence is golden'?"

Dean smirked at his brother. "Didn't you ever hear the expression 'silence is for coma patients'?"

Zoe looked up into the rearview mirror and found herself locking eyes with Dean. "So what do you recommend then since clearly we're not coma patients?"

Dean grinned and Zoe watched as he fiddled around with something in the front. The sound of an extremely loud guitar rift flooded the car and Dean made a stylish 'Rock On!' sign with his fingers. "Rock therapy, baby! Woo!"

Zoe found herself laughing in spite of all that had happened. She rested her head on the seat between Sam and Dean, and listened as Dean sang off-key.

"Only way to feel the noise is when it's good and loud,  
So good you can't believe it's screaming with the crowd.  
Don't sweat it, get it back to you.  
Don't sweat it, get it back to you.  
Overkill! Overkill! Overkill!""

Sam leaned his head close to Zoe. "Better get used to this," he shouted over Dean belting out the lyrics at the top of his lungs.

Zoe didn't mind. Dean would save her from doing any heavy-duty thinking. She closed her eyes and let the music take her to somewhere where thinking and feeling had no place. The road they were on stretched before them in so many different directions. But no matter which road they found themselves on, they'd ride it together.

* * *

**A/N: **Well that's it for the Pope Lick Monster spiel. I gotta do a little research before heading into the next part, but it should be up real soon As always please rate and review.


	5. First Mystery

**CHAPTER FIVE**

It was a glorious morning when Zoe stepped out of her hotel room and into the warm sun, though in her current mood she barely even noticed. She felt grumpy and haggard, like she hadn't gotten enough sleep. Which in all truthfulness she hadn't.

Dean had only purchased the one room last night, which meant it was three people fitting into the two double beds. Zoe had decided that it'd be a cold day in hell before she'd ever be able to fall asleep with Dean Winchster's warm body only a hair's distance away from her, so she opted to take the spot next to Sam. It was to be, as she found out later that night, a huge mistake.

Although Dean had moped quietly on his bed before settling in for the night, Sam had been a nightmare to sleep next to. He tossed and turned, moaned and groaned, and several times she'd envisioned herself stuffing a pillow over his head and holding it there for a good couple of minutes until he shut up and quit moving. Of course she never would have, and she was horrified to even think it, but sleep deprivation did things to people.

Zoe yawned tiredly, rubbed at her red, raw eyes and trudged down the stairs with her only aspiration of getting through the day keeping her from returning back to her room where she knew that double-sized bed loomed invitingly.

Sam and Dean were down here somewhere, probably already filling up on breakfast. She crossed the lobby and made her way into the conveniently placed diner, immediately spotting Sam who was sitting at the diner's counter and looked way too alert after last night's performance. As she neared his position, Sam looked up and gave her one of his slow, sad smiles. She noticed he had a cup of steaming hot coffee in his hand.

_No wonder he looks so wide awake, _Zoe muttered silently, and she almost wished that she did drink the stuff just so she didn't have to feel so exhausted.

"Where's Dean?" Zoe asked, sliding grumpily onto a stool beside Sam.

Sam shrugged and blew on his coffee to cool it, the intense aroma washing over Zoe as he did. "He said something about getting a newspaper."

Sam looked over to where a young, blonde waitress was busy taking orders, her suggestive tone and none-too-subtle flash of cleavage enthralling the good-looking man she was serving.

"He'll stumble in shortly," he murmured, guessing Dean had probably ran into someone flaunting the same sort of work ethic.

Zoe followed Sam's gaze and shook her head.

"Jeez, this place really needs to rethink its uniform," she sneered in disapproval while taking in the blonde's tiny pink chemise and equally tiny, tight denim shorts, a revealing black thong visible from where they sat. "She looks like she just came from a red-neck lingerie party."

Sam grinned. "Do I detect a hint of jealousy?" he asked in a teasing tone.

"Puh-lease!" Zoe scoffed, rolling her eyes. "You couldn't **pay **me to wear something like that! I may not have a lot of fashion sense, but I have enough to know that that there is a big no-no."

Sam smiled at Zoe and as their eyes met, they both immediately looked away sheepishly.

A sound at the front counter brought their attention back signalling that the skimpy little waitress had returned. She leaned over the counter towards Sam, folding her arms and sticking out her chest. Her nametag read "Wendy", though Zoe highly doubted most males were able to make it out past the plunging neckline that was giving them a clear, unbridled view of her extravagant cup size.

"Are you ready to order?" she asked far too sweetly, ignoring Zoe entirely as she laid the charm on thick for Sam.

Zoe was surprised when Sam turned to her without a second glance at the waitress. "Hungry?" he asked.

At the mention of food the muscles in Zoe's stomach clenched with ravenous hunger. She was starving! Her stomach grumbled loudly, and her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Sam laughed good humouredly.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, and Zoe noticed that Wendy's face had soured at not being the centre of attention for once. Though in the next instance she'd quickly switched it for an expression of fake servitude.

"I'll have the banana pancakes and another cup of coffee," Sam said and looked at Zoe expectantly.

"Sounds good, make it two except an OJ for the drink," Zoe said, handing the menu back to the waitress who took it with her mask still securely in place.

"Your meals shouldn't take too long," Wendy promised and Zoe watched as she moved away to the chef's station, strutting around like she was performing a catwalk run, her hips swinging from side to side in a fashion that certainly wasn't learnt naturally.

Zoe shook off her disbelief, and turned instead to Sam.

"Thank you," she began, fiddling nervously with the hem of her jacket sleeve. She was unable to meet Sam's gaze so she focused her eyes on a spot on his knee instead. "For, you know, not being a raging hormone-induced male and making me feel like I don't even exist when I'm standing in the same room as someone like her."

Sam laid his hand on Zoe's, which stopped her fidgeting immediately and caused her to meet his intent look with her own.

"It's impossible to pretend you don't exist," he murmured softly and Zoe felt her body warm to his touch.

It just happened to be this exact moment – while Sam and Zoe were sitting there gazing into each other's eyes like they were the only two people left in the world – that Dean finally arrived to the scene and plonked himself down beside his brother, totally unaware that he had intruded on something even remotely private. Sam pulled his hand away from Zoe's like he'd been burnt.

Dean obliviously spread several local papers over the top of the counter, and looked at Sam. "You already order for me?" he asked.

Sam shrugged. "Didn't know what you wanted," he said, sounding oddly drained. "Didn't know how long you'd be either."

Zoe shot several glances at Sam, trying to catch his eye but he kept avoiding her gaze. He looked confused and angry, and Zoe wondered whether these feelings were directed at her, Dean or even at himself.

The sound of clinking glasses and plates startled Zoe and she looked up to find that Wendy had returned with their breakfast. The waitress immediately noticed a new face had entered their midst. She flashed Dean a killer smile and flaunted her overly exposed cleavage that seemed to be ever so popular with the male patrons.

"Can I get you anything?" she asked him flirtatiously.

Zoe watched as Dean gave Wendy an appreciative once over. Sam might have been able to keep his hormones in check, but Dean was definitely lost to that fight.

"Why yes, I believe you can," he said, his focus completely lost to the scantily clad blonde. "What would you recommend?"

The waitress looked up and struck a pose like she was doing some really deep thinking in response to Dean's question, although Zoe seriously doubted that she was even able to construct a single thought in that ditzy little head of hers. People with brains tended not to hang out in dead-end diners with next to nothing on.

"I recommend the homemade waffles with a drizzle of syrup," Wendy concluded, toying with her words. Zoe noticed her body was leaning closer and closer to Dean's. Her tone turned seductive and she practically purred in his ear, "Whipped cream too if you're in the mood for that sort of thing. I know I usually am."

Dean looked like all his Christmases had come at once. Zoe felt like all her Christmases had been bitter disappointments - where she not only woke up to no presents, but also no tree, no stockings and to top it all off a big, fat balding man was the only one waiting downstairs for her who may have been red and jolly from downing too many glasses of eggnog laden with brandy, but sure as hell was no Santa Claus.

Sam cleared his throat to get his brother's attention, but Dean seemed far too out of it to notice. Sam positioned a well aimed kick to his brother's shin causing him to cry out. One of Dean's arms swept the countertop and knocked over Zoe's orange juice which immediately soaked into the pancakes that were sitting adjacent.

As the waitress left to get some napkins, Dean turned on his brother. "What the hell, dude?" he hissed in annoyance.

Sam inclined his head towards Zoe, who was sitting there looking miserable and detached.

"Hey, it's cool," Dean said and patted Zoe's arm. "I'll order you some more."

Zoe shrugged his hand off and stood up abruptly. She wasn't hungry anymore and she definitely wasn't in the mood to watch Dean gallivant around the place with his tongue dragging on the worn linoleum floor.

"Don't bother," she muttered, and headed for the exit.

Dean looked flabbergasted as he watched her retreating form. "What the hell was that about?" he asked.

Sam shook his head, slipped off the stool and looked at his brother. "You really are a moron sometimes, you know that?" he sighed in exasperation and strode off after Zoe.

Dean watched his brother go. "See, now this is why I don't like travelling with chicks," he called after his brother. "One of you pms-ing every five minutes is enough!"

Sam flipped him the bird and kept on walking. Dean sighed and looked heavenward as if to say, "why me?" before busying himself with the papers spread out in front of him.

Wendy had returned with fresh towels and began mopping up the sodden mess. Dean watched as her breasts skimmed the countertop and the waitress feeling his gaze, looked up.

Her expression turned flirtatious once more as she asked, "How about those waffles?"

Zoe was walking into a small hip-looking clothes shop – the only one in town – when Sam finally caught up to her.

He took gentle hold of her elbow and carefully turned her to face him. Zoe noticed he didn't look confused or angry anymore. On the contrary, he looked worried.

"What?" she snapped, not wanting to be rude to Sam, but unable to help it in her current mood.

Sam didn't seem perturbed by her bad temper.

"Look," he said softly and Zoe felt a stab of remorse for being so irritable. "Ignore Dean. He can be a humongous butthead sometimes, but he's a good guy. I know he cares for you. He just gets easily distracted."

_Yeah, by busty blondes in trashy diners, _Zoe inwardly pouted.

To Sam she said, "Dean can flirt with who he wants, when he wants. I was just the nearest girl to him back in Louisville. I get that and it's fine."

Inside she didn't feel like it was fine at all. Her stomach was so twisted she felt like she was going to throw up. She didn't understand how Dean could be so charismatic and coquettish to her one moment and then throw the charm on for someone entirely different the next.

Sam seemed to sense her insincerity. "So you taking off had nothing to do with what happened back in the diner?" he pressed.

"My taking off had nothing to do with what happened at the diner," she echoed monotonously. "I just need to go and buy some clothes 'cause I'm seriously running low." She thought for a moment and then added, "and perhaps an iPod for when I can't stand your brother's awful singing anymore."

Sam nodded understandingly. "Do you want me to come with you?" he asked.

Zoe looked at him like he was insane. "Do I want you to come with me while I sort through rack after rack searching for something that doesn't look completely hideous on me?"

"I'll take that as a 'no'," Sam said, scratching his head awkwardly.

Zoe shooed him away with her hand. She liked Sam, but she really needed her space right now.

"I'll be fine," she promised and she watched as he walked sulkily back towards the diner.

Now was her chance for some serious shopping.

When Sam returned to the diner he found his brother flirting with the waitress as usual. He felt a stab of annoyance for both the fact that Dean was being so thick headed towards Zoe and that his brother just didn't seem to be as serious about finding their dad as he was. He noticed his brother had gone with today's breakfast special rather than the waffles. Perhaps Dean wasn't so thick headed after all.

Sam took a seat beside his brother and requested the cheque tersely. The waitress moved off at his request, and Dean felt annoyed at Sam's brusque disposition.

"You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun once in a while," Dean said. He pointed at the departing waitress and like he was explaining it to a young child said, "That's fun."

Sam expression remained uninterested, and Dean let it slide. There was no point in trying to reason with his brother when he went all anti-fun. Instead he tossed one of his newspapers in front of Sam. It was already opened to the obituaries section where a girl's picture that had been circled earlier by Dean smiled out at them both.

"Lake Manitoc, Winconsin," Dean explained as Sam read the article. "Last week, Sophie Carlton, 18, walks into the lake, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water. Nothing. They had a funeral two days ago."

Sam was baffled. "A funeral?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's weird," Dean agreed. "They buried an empty coffin. For um, closure or whatever."

Sam felt disturbed at Dean's offhand attitude. "Closure? What closure?" Sam asked his brother as their latest case hit a nerve. "People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them."

Sam didn't necessarily think that their father's disappearance was Dean's fault, but it sure felt like his brother was sitting on his hands, twiddling his thumbs and filling their days up with what Sam thought were pointless hunts instead of following their dad to the ends of the earth.

"There something you wanna say to me?" Dean challenged.

If Sam was insinuating that he had stopped looking for their father Dean wanted to know about it.

"The trail for Dad: it's getting colder every day," Sam explained carefully.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Dean asked.

Between their current position and their dad's, there were lives were at stake. Surely Sam didn't just expect Dean to forget about them and leave them to fend for themselves.

Sam was frustrated. "I don't know. Something. Anything!"

Dean had had enough. "You know what? I'm sick of this attitude," Dean said and he really was too. "You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?"

That wasn't it at all. "Yeah, I know you do. It's just that-" Sam began but was immediately cut off by an extremely defensive and wound up Dean.

"I'm the one who's been with him every day for the past two years, while you've been off to college going to pep rallies," Dean argued, not caring if that wasn't exactly what Sam got up to at Stanton. It might have well been pep rallies for all the danger it was worth. "We will find dad," Dean promised and tapped the newspaper - where Sophie Carlton's face still beamed up at them - for emphasis to his next statement. "But until then we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?"

Sam looked like he was going to argue, but with one challenging look from his brother he thought better of it and rolled his eyes in surrender.

Suddenly the little blonde bombshell of a waitress walked by and Dean's attention became fixated on her, leaving the little tiff between brothers quickly forgotten. However; for Sam it wasn't so easy. He couldn't just turn off one emotion and replace it with the next like Dean could, but he knew there was no point in stewing over it. Instead, he hid his unease and busied himself with asking his brother how far away Lake Manitoc was. Dean didn't answer at first, his attention span not being large enough to encompass both Sam and the long-legged Wendy at the same time.

"Not too sure," Dean finally replied, snapping out of his trance. "We're gonna need a map. The little corner shop where I got the newspaper probably sells them."

"Huh..." Sam uttered thoughtfully. "You think they sell iPods?"

Dean brow furrowed as he thought of the tiny little shop that stocked only a handful of items. The number of which Dean could probably count on a couple of hands. "I don't think so," he said. "What do you need one for anyway?"

Sam shrugged. "It's not for me," he said, and then added when Dean gave him a questioning look. "It's for Zoe."

Ah, so that explained it.

Wendy returned with the check in hand, and a little something extra as Dean noticed when she slid it next to his hand with a slinky smile. Dean pulled the check back to reveal a napkin emblazoned with "Call Back Again" and Wendy's phone number scrawled in the middle. Dean grinned and slipped the napkin into his leather jacket. He ignored his brother's reprehensive look and took a couple of notes out, leaving behind a nice little tip for the waitress. Without another word they both got up and made their way outside.

As they exited the diner and crossed the quiet street, Dean spotted something that made him swear.

Three youths were perched on the hood of the Impala, the first a rich looking snot of a kid with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and a bottle of gin and tonic waving around in his hand. His entourage – three male youths – looked like they were amateur groupies who worshipped the ground their leader walked on. He himself looked like a wannabe gangster, all decked out in his designer baggy jeans that rode so low that his black silk boxers were almost completely visible and a handful of gold bling swinging off his neck.

_All pimped out and nowhere to go, _Sam thought to himself.

Parked next to the Impala was a shiny, red Mazda RX-8 that the brothers surmised belonged to the group's leader. Rap music blared from the speakers and literally shook the car's foundations. Dean sneered. If there was one music genre he couldn't stand, it was rap.

Sam watched as the first kid took a swig from the bottle of gin and tonic, some of the amber liquid sloshing down the youth's front and over his brother's prized car.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean muttered.

At the sound, the youths turned. "This your car, dude?" one asked.

"Yeah, that's right," Dean nodded. "Now why don't you remove yourselves from the hood of **my **car and go and sit it on your own before I plant my foot so far up your asses you'll think your haemorrhoids are your tonsils!"

The youths laughed at Dean's threat, and the leader imitated shaking in his boots. "Oooh, I'm so scared," he taunted. "This ancient piece of junk should consider itself lucky that it's even had the privilege of my ass on its hood."

Dean turned to his brother with an incredulous expression on his face. "He did **not **just insult my car," he said dubiously, thinking perhaps his ears had deceived him.

"Ah, yeah, I'm pretty sure he did," Sam replied, playing along.

"That motherf-" How Dean would have like to extract the hidden shotgun stashed under the front seat of the Impala and fire a round of rock salt at this little punk. It wouldn't kill him, but he'd definitely learn some respect for the car.

As Dean watched the leader of the pack hopped off the Impala and scuffed his boot rudely against the car's bumper. Dean's eyes widened. This punk definitely needed to learn some respect.

The kid strode up to Dean, sizing him up and blowing a ring of cigarette smoke into his face. Dean waved the disgusting fumes away and glared at the offender.

Sam looked around the empty street, wondering why no one had bothered to come to their assistance. Where the hell were the cops when you actually needed them?

As if he knew exactly what Sam was looking for the leader sneered at him. "Don't bother looking for help," he guffawed. "My father owns this town. Nobody's gonna help a couple of losers like you."

Dean turned to his brother. It was time to put this little brat in his place. "What do you think, Sammy?" he asked. "Is class in session? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I just heard the bell."

Sam laughed, and shook his head. The only bells that Dean could probably hear were the insistent ding-ding-ding that seemed to spur on every Jerry Springer contestant to an onset of violence. Sam knew it was probably not the smartest thing to get into a fight with a bunch of pubescent teens, but damnit he had frustrations too.

"What lesson are we teaching today?" Sam asked, giving in to the need to let his frustrations out.

Dean looked thoughtful as he cracked each knuckle. "How about 'How dissin' someone else's car could end up in some serious ass whoopin'?'"

"Sounds good," Sam said in approval, and together they started towards the four youths.

The leader of the group headed Dean off by barring the way with his chest. Dean had to give the kid credit: he might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but he certainly had guts. Of course the thought of giving the guy any credit immediately was squashed when the cocky little punk began to stub out his cigarette – right on Dean's favourite leather jacket.

The four youths all howled with laughter as Dean looked down at his chest to find a round burn mark in the brown leather. He clenched his fists at his side to keep his hands from shooting out and strangling the little mongrel where he stood.

Noticing Dean's restraint the punk leaned forward, his face stopping a couple of inches from Dean's. "See? You can't do shit to me," he leered, his smug grin begging Dean's fist to wipe it off.

Dean was only too happy to comply. "Oh really?" he challenged as he let his restraint drop and one of his fist met the fleshy exterior of the punk's cheekbone. Sam rushed forward to dissuade the other youths from ganging up on his brother with a flurry of well aimed punches.

Five minutes later Dean found himself grunting as he flung the unconscious group leader down beside his moaning and groaning flunkies, and waited patiently for Sam to pop the RX-8's trunk. The music was still blaring, and when Sam finally did pop the trunk the music became even louder. Dean soon found out why. Several large speakers had been integrated into the trunk. They didn't take up any room, but the car had become a sub-woofer on wheels. Dean liked it. He would definitely have liked to install a similar setup in the trunk of the Impala had the car not already housed a vast variety of arsenal. Louder music was good. Protection was even better.

Rap music continued to flow from the speakers, and the reverberation from the subwoofers was actually making Dean feel like his heart was being squeezed nauseatingly from its cage. He stepped over the heaped bodies of the downed punks and poked his head through the open door of the RX-8 where Sam, who was seated in the driver's seat, was busy wiping away any fingerprints he might've left with his shirt.

Dean looked at what he thought must've been the CD player. Its display was lit up in a variety colours and it had so many buttons and small electronic devices wired up all to it, he wasn't even sure where he should begin. He looked at Sam expectantly.

Sam sighed in exasperation and gave the CD player a once over. "You've gotta remove the iPod from its dock," he spotted.

"Okay, I can do that," Dean murmured. An iPod was like a walkman, right?

Sam watched on as his brother struggled to make heads or tails of the detailed mess. Finally after watching Dean pause on several different items before moving on to another, Sam thought it was time to put his brother out of his misery and pulled the little black iPod nano from its dock. The music immediately stopped. He jiggled the iPod under his brother's nose, its earphones dangling mockingly.

"You know," Sam began. "Maybe it's time you joined the rest of us in the 21st century."

"I knew that!" Dean said defensively and snatched the iPod from his brother's hand. He looked the device over, amazed at its small size and then stuck it into his pocket. "And what do you mean I'm not livin' in the 21st century," he added, thoughtfully. "Where else could I get an all access pass to Pornotube dot com?"

Sam laid his hand on his head like he could feel a headache coming on. Dean walked back to where the punks lay, picked one up and threw him into the trunk like he was a bag of potatoes.

"Instead of sitting there wondering how the hell we ever came to be related and feeling sorry for yourself, why don't you go and get that map?" he called back to his brother who still sat motionless in the front seat of the RX-8.

_Why not? _Sam shrugged.

He got out of the car, closed the door with the sleeve of his jacket and began to walk towards the convenience store. He had only gone about four paces when Dean called out to him.

"Hey, grab us a CD while you're at it," he hollered. "Something classic."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Why?" he asked.

Dean's lip curled into a smirk. "I've got one more lesson to teach."

A bit of retail therapy was just what the doctor ordered. By the time Zoe had finished she had six pairs of fresh, stylish bootleg jeans, two pyjama sets, a week's worth of undergarments, a dozen shirts of all different styles and several warm jackets.

She was just about to pay for her items and meet back up with Sam and Dean when the cutest cashmere sweater in the softest blue she had ever seen caught her eye, and ever better it was her exact size! She just had to try it on. Surely Sam and Dean could wait just a little longer.

Zoe strode into the changing rooms, her incredible find dangling off her arm. As soon as the curtains were closed she shed her top and stood there in her lavender-coloured lace bra and jeans. She stripped the sweater from its coat hanger and was just about to slip it over her head when the curtains suddenly rattled and parted to the side, revealing a very intrigued-looking Dean who immediately began looking at her half naked chest appreciatively. Zoe yelped in surprise. She grabbed the sweater and wrapped it around her chest, glaring daggers at the intruder.

"You can't be back here, Dean!" she shouted, looking around for the nice old lady who ran the store.

Surely she'd come and chase Dean out, especially after hearing Zoe's outcry. But after several moments passed and still no one came, Zoe began to feel nervous about having Dean so close in their small quarters.

"She won't come," Dean said, after seeing the obvious confusion as to the old woman's whereabouts etched itself into Zoe's features.

"Oh, really? And why is that, Dean?" she demanded. "Did you stuff her into a closet, bind her hands and feet and gag her?"

"Nah," he replied simply. "Actually I told her we needed some alone time. She thought I was adorable."

Standing there in her change room, with a large grin that made his green eyes twinkle mischievously, Zoe found it pretty impossible to disagree. She drew back away from him, taking a steadying silent breath and perching herself on the changing room stool.

Zoe crossed her arms, pressing the sweater tightly against her chest. "Is there something you needed so urgently that it couldn't wait a measly five minutes, Dean?" she asked in annoyance.

In one fluid movement Dean was squatting down in front of her, both of his arms resting against the stall walls on either side of Zoe's head and trapping her there. Zoe felt his breath tickle her chin and she tried desperately not to let her gaze fall to his lips for she knew that would be her undoing.

Dean's eyes were so intense on hers and she was beginning to feel like she would do anything suggested by that kissable mouth of his. His face was getting closer, his breathing harder, until at last there wasn't an inch of distance between the two of them. Just as Zoe thought he was going to lean in and kiss her, he pulled back, a teasing smile fresh on his lips.

"Better get dressed, princess," he said, sending Zoe reeling.

She watched as Dean stood up, her face a mixture of utter confusion and bewilderment. He made his way out of the booth leaving a very frustrated Zoe behind. Had he just been toying with her? Pushing her buttons to find out which ones made her tick.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Zoe yelled after him. At the same time she was shoving her old long-sleeved tee on and had raced out of the door with the cashmere sweater in hand.

Dean stood at the front counter and thumbed through his wallet before producing a single credit card. As the old lady who ran the store took it from him, she looked back at Zoe and gave her a knowing smile. Zoe's cheeks reddened and she looked down only to find that she'd stuck her shirt on back to front. Her embarrassment quickly turned to humiliation. What this old lady must've thought of her!

Dean stood smugly and eyed the crumpled sweater in her hand. "You wanting to buy that, sweetheart?" he asked with fake innocence.

Zoe's fist balled and it took every last bit of self control not to hurl the sweater at his stupid, arrogant head. She nodded curtly and tossed the shirt instead up on the counter, letting the old woman ring it up as she pulled her arms inside her shirt and positioned it the right way round.

Dean signed the name on the receipt – Rick Prunckun – and began scooping up the bags the old woman had filled up with Zoe's new clothes. They both said their goodbyes and walked out of the shop together, heading towards their Impala.

"What took you guys so long?" Sam asked irritably from the front passenger seat when they arrived.

Dean tossed the bags in the back seat and watched as Zoe scurried in from the opposite side and sat there in a huff. He chuckled to himself as he was struck by just how cute she could be look when she got all stroppy. Opening the driver's side door, he slid in behind the wheel and looked over to an expectant Sam.

"Well?" Sam demanded, seemingly annoyed.

Dean looked back at his brother and his happiness sobered. He felt like groaning. He knew that Sam wanted to find their dad but this was getting ridiculous.

"It was my fault," Zoe piqued up from the backseat. "I was feeling really indecisive and Dean helped me out. I would have been even longer if he hadn't hurried me up."

Sam looked from Zoe to Dean, looking for any signs of guilt. Not finding anything suspicious he shrugged his shoulders and pulled a Wisconsin roadmap from his lap, his mood returning to normal.

"I looked up Lake Manitoc," he said, tapping his finger on a little grey dot. "We should make it there by this afternoon if traffic conditions are good."

Dean grinned slowly at his brother. With him behind the wheel they'd make it no trouble. He dug in his pocket for the Impala's keys and stopped as his fingers closed around something plastic. He turned to Zoe. "Here," he said, handing her the contents of his pocket. "Sam said you were looking for one."

Zoe looked at the shiny black iPod nano in the palm of her hand and matching earphones. It looked brand new. "Where did you get this from?" she asked warily.

"It's mine," Dean replied. Sam started to open his mouth, but Dean silenced his brother with an icy glare. "I got it from a town a few hunts back," he explained.

Zoe was satisfied with his answer. She turned the gadget on and began scrolling through the songs, expecting to find it loaded with what Sam loved to call Dean's "mullet rock". What she found instead really made her question the origins of the iPod.

Scrolling through the various artists, Zoe's doubt was through the roof as names like "50 Cent", "Snoop Dogg" and "2Pac" stared up at her from the LCD screen.

Zoe leaned forward as Dean started the Impala and peered up at him in the rear-view mirror. "Wow Dean, I never knew you had such a versatile choice in music," she said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

Dean gave her a confused look and let the car idle in park as Zoe raised her iPod into his line of vision.

"Never knew you were a fan of 50 Cent for that matter either," she said, and Sam had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.

"50 Cent?" Dean asked warily, his eyebrow shooting north before he replied with fake enthusiasm. "Hell yeah! 50 Cent and I go way back! I'm one of his biggest fans actually!"

Zoe lowered the iPod and sized Dean up using the mirror. "Riiiight," she said, not believing a single word that was shooting out of his conniving mouth. Suddenly she had an idea. "You wouldn't mind singing a few verses of one of his songs, then."

She watched as Dean sweated at being put on the spot. "Uh..." he began, obviously flustered. "Wouldn't have a favourite there that you might like to hear, would ya?" he asked, hoping intently that maybe the song's title would spur the artist within.

Zoe looked back at her iPod and read the title of the artist's first song. "How about Candy Shop?" she prompted.

Silence flooded the car as Dean silently tested out several different verses in his head to see if they even sounded plausible. Sam grinned like a little kid and eventually Zoe felt she had waited long enough. She brought her hand back and slapped Dean painfully across the head.

"Whoa!"Dean cried, shielding himself from the angry girls' onslaught as Sam roared with laughter. "Calm down, woman!"

Zoe shoved the iPod under his nose and shook it. "You stole this!" she accused.

"**Confiscated** it," Dean corrected, his smug grin back in place. "Punk kid was messing with the car! Don't worry, kid's got enough to buy a million of those things. Which reminds me..." He turned to Sam. "You got that CD?" he asked.

Sam produced a CD from his jacket and held it up for Dean to see. "Metallica's Black Album, sweet," Dean grinned in approval. "Almost wanna keep it for myself."

Dean shrugged, slipped out of the still running Impala and jogged over to the shiny RX-8 that was parked a couple of spaces over. The next moment Zoe and Sam watched as he disappeared into the car's driver seat and began fiddling with something that they couldn't see. Powerful rock music belted out of the car's speakers as No Leaf Clover began to play.

"I really don't want to even ask, do I?" Zoe asked Sam as Dean slapped the trunk of the RX-8 where several punks had been stowed.

"No, you really don't," Sam agreed and watched as Dean slipped back in beside him.

"Remind me to call somebody to get them out of there once we're far enough away," Dean said gleefully.

Zoe was horror stricken but she bit her tongue. There had been enough arguments today already.

"So a successful lesson I take it?" Sam asked.

"Oh yeah!" Dean grinned his devil-may-care smile at his comrades, slammed the Impala towards the highway and sped off into the distance like a hundred hell hounds were snapping at his ankles. "Class dismissed!"


	6. I Don't Do Stay

**A/N:** Okay as you've probably guessed this is the Dead in the Water episodes. The next chapter will finish off that episode (Thank God!) I'm going to try to avoid episodes like this in the future where Dean is flirtatious with another woman in the episode cause that leads to jealousy. My goal for adding this episode (with the whole jealousy) is to bring the two characters closer, even though they are bickering like children at the moment. So I'll add certain favourite episodes where Dean is able to control his hormones =P In between those will be my own thought out hunts. It probably sounds confusing but trust me I have it all planned out =)

* * *

**CHAPTER SIX**

The drive to Lake Manitoc was a long one. On Sam's orders Dean had pulled out his cell phone 30 minutes into the drive, and given Wendy a call where he informed her that several punk rich kids were currently getting a very musical appreciation towards Metallica in the trunk of a Maxda RX-8. Wendy, who seemed to be quite fond of the young punks (who'd have thought it?), had immediately hung up, and Dean had crumpled the napkin baring her phone number in his fist before rolling down the window and tossing it to the dust, muttering, "What a waste!"

The rest of the drive remained non-eventful. They had only made one stop to a gas station. The dingy, little, country gas station had been run by a disgusting, little twerp of a man, and he'd made Zoe feel so uncomfortable that she sat in the Impala and refused to be shifted. Dean replenished their food stocks with several large packets of crisps, a few chocolate bars, a couple of Brewskis for him and his brother and a can of Coke for Zoe.

Zoe had started to complain about not having any real food, that was of course until Dean informed her about the swarm of blowflies that were currently lying mounds of maggot eggs in the chicken and mayo on rye. Zoe felt sick to her stomach at the thought, and checked her Snickers bar to make sure it wasn't past its use-by-date - which thank goodness it wasn't. Sam paid for the gas with another fake credit card, and once again they were back on the road, Zoe trying to pass the time by getting some shut eye. Her thoughts continually drew back to her father though, and before long she became so frustrated at sleep's expert evasion that she found herself sliding into the empty seat between the two brothers. Dean looked sideways at her, but didn't say anything. Sam was sleeping soundlessly with his head against the window pane. He looked a lot more at rest than he had last night.

"It's nice to see him not tossing and turning," Zoe mused.

Dean looked at his brother sound asleep. There were definitely no nightmares plaguing him. In fact he actually looked pretty darn peaceful with his mouth hanging slightly ajar as he snored lightly. A small sliver of drool pooled at the corner of his open mouth. Dean shuddered and Zoe had to stifle a giggle as she watched Dean follow the dribble's progress in his peripheral vision as it traced over his brother's lip and down his chin. Zoe thought that Sam looked adorable. Dean thought his brother just looked gross. He turned his attention back to the road, and didn't look at anything else until Zoe silenced a yawn with the back of her hand.

Dean gazed at her out of the corner of his eye. "Tired?" he prompted.

Zoe shrugged nonchantly. "More like insanely bored," she sighed, and looked up at the car's roof. "I had a dozen or so books back in my father's car..." _But we all know what happened there, _she added silently.

Dean seemed to sense her inner turmoil, and decided to try and lighten the mood. He gave her a sideways glance, and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"There's a Hustler under the seat if you're interested," he said, and chuckled when Zoe shot him a disgusted look.

"I said **books, **pervert, not the One-Handed Manual," she dejected, sourly.

Dean refocused on the road ahead, but Zoe caught a flash of his gorgeous smirk before it was hidden behind an expression that was far more innocent. He was toying with her, of that she was sure certain, and he was enjoying it! Even worse was that Zoe had a sneaking suspicion that on some level she was enjoying it too.

_This is getting more complicated by the minute, _Zoe thought to herself, an overly dramatic sigh escaping her lips.

Dean shot her a look out of the corner of his eye, but remained silent. The Impala's usual quiet purr seemed to turn into a deafening roar in the surrounding silence, and Dean found himself reaching for a cassette tape to fill the quiet void. Before he could seize one though, Sam's snore spluttered into a gargle and he watched as his brother's body became rigid and his hands clawed into talons.

Zoe's body crashed into Dean's in her bid to escape the small prison that the front seat of the Impala had transformed into.

Dean's right hand harshly seized the steering wheel before it could jerk out of his grip, his other hand looping around Zoe's waist to hold her securely against him.

"It's alright," he whispered, his voice soothing in her ear. "It's just a nightmare."

Zoe watched as Sam's body tensed once more before he became still. His body unwound from its tense posture as a dreamless sleep took over him once more. His head lolled towards the window and he began snoring again, as though nothing had even happened.

Zoe stared at him flabbergasted before turning her attention towards Dean who still held her firmly in his grasp. She felt too curious to feel self-conscious.

"What was that?" she demanded.

"I told you," Dean said, averting his eyes from her probing gaze. "A nightmare."

"What sort of nightmare?" she prodded.

Zoe's could have sworn she felt Dean's heart thud faster through her back and she watched as he bit his lip and a flicker of some unknown pain crossed his eyes. He was protecting someone, and Zoe felt bitter disappointment as she realised it wasn't her.

Dean cleared his throat and said, a little too late, "Britney Spears adopting a couple kids from Sri Lanka, Dolly Parton getting a breast reduction, who knows what Sammy classes as a nightmare."

Zoe gritted her teeth. "You're avoiding," she accused.

Dean stared a little too intently at the road ahead of them. "I don't know," he muttered, unconvincingly.

"Bullshit!" she countered, slipping out of his embrace, which had just started to resemble two strangers who had been thrown together to pose for a picture: tense and very uncomfortable.

"Don't push me!" Dean warned, and his voice rose with such finality that he expected to see his brother jerk awake. However, Sam continued to snore peacefully, completely oblivious to his warring posse.

Zoe's eyes flashed angrily. She wasn't going to back down.

"Or what?" she demanded.

Dean's nostrils flared and his gaze was suddenly livid as he turned his head towards her. Zoe watched as his knuckles, held so tightly against the steering wheel, flashed white and she almost cringed, thinking that he was going to actually hit her.

Instead, she locked her eyes onto his and held her ground. They stared at each other for what seemed like ages, until Dean finally swore so badly that Zoe's ears actually burned red in embarrassment and he reached over and grabbed the first cassette tape he could find, slamming it into radio's slot and pitching the volume up before it had even begun to play.

"It's none of your goddamn business," he hissed through clenched teeth, and before Zoe could even utter a single word, music was flooding the car, so loud that it made it impossible to think, let alone continue the argument.

Sam bolted awake with shock, and looked around from his brother's furious expression to Zoe's humiliated one. It didn't take a genius to figure out that a fight had just occurred.

Zoe took a deep shuddering breath, trying to douse the inner chaos of flames that had started licking around her stomach. So he wanted to be childish about this, did he? Well two could play at that game.

Without a second glance at either brother, she flung herself over into the back, and stretched her body along the roomy leather seat, grateful for the fact that now that she was lying down she wouldn't be able to see Dean shooting her any angry glances in the rearview mirror. She grabbed her new iPod where she'd left it on the floor and stuck the earphones in her ears. As the rap music flooded her head, she closed her eyes and tried to lose herself in the odd lyrics.

* * *

By the time they had reached the country roads that would lead them to Lake Manitoc, Zoe was certain she could probably sing all of the choruses to at least all of 50 Cent's songs and probably some of Eminem's. She was quite surprised to find that she didn't despise all the music. In fact she was quite taken with Akon's "Lonely". The little high pitched voice that sang the choruses reminded her of her childhood days where she would sit with her grandma and watch the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. Dancing around to Woolly Bully had to be one of her most cherished childhood memories. Of course those were the happier days before she had found out about the real world.

When she looked back it was like someone else had lived those memories. Zoe felt like she was invading someone else's privacy. It felt wrong to reminisce. Too painful, too much longing for something that no longer was.

Her finger hit the button to play the next song, and then she was lost in a flurry of lyrics that she couldn't understand which left her feeling kind of detached, which was exactly how she wanted to feel. Her eyes drooped and eventually closed.

* * *

Zoe didn't remember falling asleep, but when her eyes opened she found she was being shaken gently by Sam. She pulled her earphones free from her ears, and was surprised to hear that Dean's music was actually playing quite low. She sat up and sneaked a look at him in the rearview mirror. He actually looked pretty calm. It looked like the storm had finally passed, and what a gorgeous day it was turning out to be.

Zoe turned to gaze outside the Impala's back window as the fields of green grew scarce to make way for the huge lake that the town was named after.

"We're almost in Lake Manitoc," Sam said, and Zoe looked out the window just in time to see a man fishing on the bridge they were travelling over.

A huge sign welcomed them to the town of Lake Manitoc, and beyond that, a fleet of small boats waved cheerfully from the water at them. Zoe felt remorse for the town that she was only visiting because of the odd circumstances of a drowning girl. How she wished things could have been so much simpler.

Dean shot her a cautious glance in the rearview mirror as if testing the waters. Then seeing that Zoe wasn't about to bite his head off, he plunged forward.

"Our story is we work for the U.S. Wildlife Service," Dean explained. "Probably best if you let us do the talking."

Zoe was rolling her eyes before she'd even thought about it. Her father had always done the same sort of thing. She was just there to stand beside him and look the part of a partner, not actually play that part.

With directions from Sam, Dean turned the car down a side dirt road, and Zoe was aware that the surrounding forest was pushing in on them all from both sides. It was lush and green with fallen logs overrun with dense moss and it reminded Zoe of the picturesque scenery of a Hallmark calendar.

The tires seized the road as Dean brought the car to a stop in front of a wooden house, painted the colour of faded rust. Dean forced the car into park, opened the glove compartment and retrieved a small wooden box. Carelessly fishing through its contents he held up two leather identification wallets in appreciation before handing one of them to Sam. With a ready nod of their heads, both Winchesters opened their car doors.

_Hopefully they won't ask for mine, _Zoe thought as she followed the brother's cue and stepped out into the late afternoon sun.

With slow deliberate movements, she joined Dean and Sam as they made their way up the house's sturdy wooden steps and waited patiently while Dean rapped loudly on the door. They didn't have to wait long as a male, whom Zoe guessed was a close relative of the deceased, opened the door warily.

"Will Carlton?" Dean queried in a professional voice.

"Yeah, that's right," Will replied, looking over the three people who had crashed his line of mournful thought.

Will, who Zoe now recognised was Sophie Carlton's brother, wore a subdued expression on his pale face. He was only a young man, perhaps no older than twenty, and his dark hair was cropped close to his head. Zoe felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. It was bad enough that he had lost his sister, but no doubt he thought it was some freakish accident that caused his sister's death. Nothing at all supernatural.

Zoe wondered for a moment which would be easier. Believing some false truth that gave you many questions but left you with a sense that the world still worked in exactly the same way as it had yesterday with just the minor exception that it was now one person short, or the fact that there were shadows in every corner and if you strained long and hard enough you might just manage a glimpse that the world had never worked the way you thought it had, and it had taken that one person short to make you open your eyes and realise the truth: that the world was indeed a cold, dark place, more supernatural than you ever thought was possible.

Dean's voice snapped her back to the present. "I'm Agent Ford, this is Agent Hamill and back there is Agent Fisher in training," he said, indicating them all in turn while showing some identification. "We're with the U.S. Wildlife Service."

Will's eyes washed over Dean and Sam before coming to rest on her. At first Zoe thought perhaps she wasn't doing a good enough job of faking it, when she realised she was often told she looked to be around eighteen-years-old. She remembered how much it used to bother her. She was after all, almost twenty-two, and if her genes were anything like the women in her family she'd probably keep looking like she was eighteen when she was thirty. But by that stage it would be a great compliment and one she'd wear proudly. Now it just irked the hell out of her.

"We're sorry for your loss," Zoe said, forcing her mouth to move.

Will seemed to be shaken back to the present. He nodded his head, the best appreciation he could give at the circumstances, and looked back to Dean.

"Sophie didn't drown," he said, matter-of-factly.

Perhaps the veil wasn't so well hidden after all.

Dean pocketed his I.D. to give himself time to answer properly.

"We'd heard... rumours," Dean stated. "Thought it best if we could get an eye-witness account of what happened instead of accepting second-hand gossip. Decide whether it's a drowning-"

"Sophie didn't drown," Will repeated.

"-or if something else is at work," Sam concluded for his brother.

Will seemed to want to say something else, but Dean was already asking if they could see where it happened. With a defeated sigh and a shrug of his shoulders, Will lead the trio down the stairs, around the back of the house and towards the lake. The water was surprising calm, dark water, but not at all menacing. It was just the way nature had intended it. Odd to think its murky depths was home to something far more sinister. It was such a beautiful piece of scenery. The lake was surrounded by the same green forest they had drove through, and was so expansive it was like the Carltons had their own personal lake. It was a quaint, quiet piece of nature and the only thing that gave any indication that something bad had happened here was the old man who sat on a bench on the pier, looking forlornly out into the water as if it held his long lost soul. Obviously this father hadn't found closure in simply burying his daughter's casket.

"So you saw it happen?" Sam urged.

Will nodded and pointed out towards the lake. "She was 100 yards out. That's where she got dragged down," he said.

Zoe continued to watch the old man. The whole time they had been here he hadn't once acknowledged their presence. Zoe felt another cold dose of sympathy for Will. He probably felt like he'd lost two people that day instead of just one.

"Are you sure she didn't just drown?" Dean asked dubiously. Obviously the serenity of this place had caused him uncertainty too.

"Yeah," Will said without hesitation. "She was a varsity swimmer. She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as she was in her own bathtub."

Zoe shared a sad look with Sam. If only this guy knew the truth. Unless Sophie's bathtub had been perched on hallowed ground, there was just no way to be certain she could have been safer swimming around in it instead of out in the lake.

Dean continued to interview Will, but nothing promising arose from it. Sophie hadn't struggled. There were no splashes, no signs of distress. She'd simply disappeared... Will hadn't seen any shadows, and nothing had breached the surface, although she had been pretty far out, so they couldn't completely rule out an accidental drowning. On closer inspection Zoe had found no tracks, no indication that if anything had taken Sophie down to the watery depths it hadn't come from the shore, and Will's father was too far into his despair to offer any information that might help their case, let alone crack it. In the end the three of them left the Carltons' with no real leads.

* * *

As the trio got back into the car each with their own sombre expression, Sam turned and looked out of his window maintaining a steady silence.

Finally after several moments Dean was the one to break it.

"Doesn't look like Will's stopped looking for answers," he said, turning towards his brother who didn't respond. Shaking his head, Dean started the Impala up and made a crude U-Turn.

"Keep driving like that and he'll be looking real close at just how much you truly care for the wildlife around here next, Han Solo," Zoe muttered.

Dean chose to ignore her comment. "So Sammy, what do you want to do now?"

Sam shrugged his shoulders, took out his fake U.S. Wildlife Service ID and studied it. "Well we still have these," Sam said turning the ID over in his long fingers. "Might as well put them to good use."

Dean nodded, and stepped on the gas. "Let's see what the local authorities are saying about this undue accident."

Zoe arched her brow and cleared her throat.

"What's wrong, Princess Leia? Wanting to skip the authorities and just get straight to our blossoming romance?" Dean teased.

Zoe glared at him from the back seat. "Big whoop, we've all seen Star Wars, hurrah, hurrah," she muttered sarcastically. "That still doesn't change the fact that you've only got two IDs and there's three people in this car. I'm pretty sure a cop is gonna be pretty scrutinous in the identification department."

Dean nodded like he'd already anticipated this. "Yes ma'am, that's why you're staying in the car while Sam and I have a word with the Sheriff."

Zoe's jaw dropped. She didn't want to act like a immature brat, but damnit this was totally unfair!

Dean met her gaze like he was challenging her to protest. Instead she closed her mouth and slowly leant back against the back seat. If nothing else she had been right about the three of them going in together. It would draw unnecessary attention to the trio, and the last thing they needed was their cover blown so early in the game. Dean's attention turned back to the road and in no time at all he was pulling into an empty spot just across from the police station.

As Dean and Sam got out of the car, Dean turned back and patted the Zoe's door. "Be a good girl now and watch the car," he smirked and then added. "Sit. Stay!"

Dean was already walking across the road, which left Zoe nothing but his retreating back to glare angrily at. As soon as the two disappeared into the station she leant forward to check in the hope that maybe Dean had been neglectful enough to leave the keys in the ignition. Taking his precious Impala for a couple of spins around the block would sure wipe that smirk off his face and teach the cheeky bastard a lesson he'd never forget. Unfortunately there was no such luck. Dean and those keys were like Siamese twins: inseparable.

Well she sure as hell wasn't going to sit here like a good little bitch and do as she was told. If nothing else she could ask the residents of Lake Manitoc if they'd noticed anything unusual. Opening the rear passenger door she hopped out of the backseat and began walking up the closest footpath. She couldn't help but curse her father for the fact that he could have at least left her World Wide News reporter ID. That ID was a great credential at getting her foot in the door if nothing else. There was always someone wanting to talk when a reporter was around just so the person could have their 15 minutes of fame. This time though she'd have to be a little more creative.

Scanning the area around her she noticed an old lady with white-grey hair dressed in a pink buttoned up shirt trimmed with lace, and a flowing black skirt was stocking buckets full of flowers outside of a small convenience shop just a few metres away.

Zoe knew she would have to stoop to deceit if she was going to get any info on Sophie Carlton's mysterious death, so she closed her eyes tightly, and thought about her father... the way he had left, driven away in the night, how he hadn't even slowed down as she fell to the ground tearing open her jeans and grazing her knees at the same time. The memory was too much and tears seeped from between her closed eyelids. She quietly swallowed a rather large sob before it could escape from her lips. Opening her eyes, she looked at the old lady placing bouquets of pink and white carnations in one of the buckets. She hated to use her own hurt and betrayal to get information out of a sweet old lady, but you used the tools available to you. And right now, this was all she had.

Zoe crossed the distance between the old lady and herself, and with tear-filled eyes and a perfectly timed sob the old woman looked up, concern etched in her kindly wrinkled face. "Are you alright, dear?"

Zoe shook her head, her bangs swaying with the motion and sticking to the tears running down her cheeks. "I just heard my cousin, Sophie, drowned in Lake Manitoc..." She drew in a shaky breath. "We used t-t-to swim in that lake all the time when we were kids." Zoe's chest heaved and a giant sob racked her body. "She taught me how to swim... freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, sidestroke... Before that I only knew how to dog paddle."

The old woman patted Zoe's back in a soothing gesture. "Oh my, you poor thing."

Zoe hiccupped a sob, and laid out the perfect lie. "No one will tell me what's going on," she sobbed. "Someone said that she drowned, but there's no way. Sophie was born to be in the water. We used to joke that she must've been a fish in a previous life… It just doesn't make sense."

The old lady pulled her into a gentle embrace. "Oh how terrible," she whispered. "First losing Chris and now poor dear, sweet Sophie. And their deaths so terribly close together too. Were you close to Chris too?" she asked.

_Fake it, Zoe, _she told herself as the unrecognisable name cropped up. _You can't stuff this up._

"Of course," Zoe sniffled. "We were all so close. Especially Uncle Bill and Chris".

"Oh, I can only imagine," the old woman comforted. "I have three godchildren myself and I couldn't imagine how devastated I would be if I lost any of them."

Zoe silently whooped in victory. So there was a godchild in the midst. Well, judging by the old woman's statement it couldn't be Sophie because Chris had died first, therefore that only left this Chris fellow. He must have been Bill Carlton's godson. So there was a link between the deaths. Two related people had been killed by something in the lake. So far no information had revealed itself about the third person lost to whatever entity this was.

"How is young Will coping?" the old lady asked, interrupting Zoe's thought process. "I should really bake them a casserole. I'm sure neither Will or Bill feel like cooking right now".

What was it about people dying that automatically made the surrounding community think "let's bake some casserole"? Zoe wondered. Personally had someone close to her died she'd want some comfort food like sweet cocoa soufflé or white chocolate tapioca pudding. Now that was the kind of food that enticed you to eat when you were feeling like utter crap.

Zoe wiped a few stray tears from her cheek. Man, if only she'd had the choice of opting to study performing arts when she'd been at high school than being forced into the family business. She definitely had an acting streak given the right motivation. So there was a good chance she might have really made a name for herself on stage.

"Will's doing as well as can be expected, I suppose," she said, biting her lip. "Bill has been practically mute since it happened."

The old lady clicked her tongue. "Mute, oh dear," she said, shaking her head sadly. "Just like Lucas. How is Lucas holding up? This must feel so much like deja vu for him after seeing his father drown."

Zoe paused for a moment. Another name she didn't recognise. Lucas could either be Chris' son or the still nameless drowning victim's son.

_Another fake it job, _Zoe thought.

"Yeah," Zoe nodded, pushing her hair back from her face so fresh tears could fall. "Lucas is… well you know Lucas".

The old woman grew silent. "To be honest I haven't seen much of Lucas since Chris drowned," she said sorrowfully making Zoe think the old lady was close to tears herself. "It just breaks my heart too much to see that little boy so broken and lost. Before his father's death he was a running, laughing bundle of joy, just like any other kid. Now he just sits silently and does those strange drawings of his".

The old lady stared off in the distance, and Zoe realised there would be no more information to be gathered here. Still, she had found out that Lucas was indeed Chris' son, and that was progress in itself. Maybe these drawings Lucas was doing wasn't so much strange as depicting something dark and out of this world that any "normal" person couldn't identify with. She'd definitely have to see them to make a final judgement.

Feeling bad for taking up so much of the old woman's time and almost making her cry Zoe asked if she could buy a couple of bouquets of carnations. She paid with the last remaining cash she had on her, and not knowing what else to do with the flowers trailed back to the bridge they first drove past when entering the town of Lake Manitoc. One by one she held the carnations over the side of the bridge and slowly began letting them fall from her grip. She watched as each flower fell slowly towards the lake before coming to float upon its surface.

It was like a ritual. With each carnation that left her fingers, a tear escaped from between her eyes. She decided that after this she would shed no more tears for her father. It had been his choice to leave her behind, and she realised that she had to gather the strength to let him go. And that's exactly what she would do…

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**A/N: **Please rate and review. I'll start writing Chapter 7 today and with all luck will have it posted within the next couple of days =)


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